Cat's Cradle
by frankannestein
Summary: One night, Felline woke up to an explosive argument between her parents. The next day, her mother was gone. Heartbroken, her father accepted a position in the palace guard in Thundera, bringing Felline and her sister to the Cat's royal city. And it's there that Felline first sees Lion-O.
1. All Cats Are Gray in the Dark, part one

_**ThunderCats in its entirety © Warner Bros.**_

* * *

The first time she saw Prince Lion-O, he was drowning.

Heart in her mouth, she stuck her paw in the cold, clear water. But of course, once she did that, she couldn't see him anymore. She tried again. Missed. Water rippled and sparkled like glass over his profile.

"Felline!" her sister hissed, tugging at her tail. "Fa-_leen_! You got it already. What are you doing now?"

Felline jerked her tail free irritably. She didn't like people touching it. Lepra knew that. "I thought I saw – there!" In her desperate attempt to reach the prince, she nearly fell headfirst into the fountain.

"Oh, it's not _worth_ it," Lepra was saying, but Felline wormed out of her sister's grip and submerged up to the waist anyway.

The water was so icy she gasped in surprise, sending water up her nose. It was summer – shouldn't the water have been a little warmer? Or was it always cold this close to the mountains? Determined not to let the prince get away, she scrabbled through the other cats already lying at the bottom until she felt the hard, circular edge of his face lift free. Feet flailing, she pushed herself upright with a splash and a triumphant laugh, the coin clutched in her fist.

"Here, now," she heard through the water in her ears, "what are you girls doing?"

"Nothing," Lepra squeaked. Her claws were digging into Felline's upper arm hard enough to draw blood.

Felline flipped her wet hair out of her face and smiled at the palace guard, putting herself between him and her sister, who was suction-cupped to her side. "We were making wishes," she explained breezily, hiding her booty behind her back. "And I accidentally dropped my earring."

Which was actually the truth. She showed the guard her other paw, a gold hoop glinting in a tiny puddle on her white palm. "It belonged to my mother and I didn't want to lose it."

"All right, then. Take more care, will you? I don't want to see you doing that again," the guard said. He was an older cat, his armor not hiding the layer of fat built up over his muscles. By the way he was fighting a smile, however, Felline wondered if he had daughters, or perhaps granddaughters, that weren't quite as well-behaved as they should be. "The fountain is not for swimming. Try and remember that."

He walked away, and Felline snorted on a laugh. She eyed the fountain. It was snowy white and both taller and bigger around than their old house. A great cat rose majestically out of the middle, its head blue, the red seal of the royal family, a replica of the Eye of Thundera, around its neck. Lesser cats surrounded it, pouring water from their open mouths into the multi-tiered basin.

The "fountain" in the village square of Foret had been little more than a moss covered wishing well. This thing, its basin littered with shiny, overlapping mounds of coins, might as well have been spouting _wine_.

The square was busy today. Quite a few of the Thunderian nobles had seen Felline's rescue operation. Although she couldn't hear what anybody was saying, for there were so many voices bouncing around the white marble columns and tropical gardens that they congealed into a monotonous buzz, she noticed the covert pointing and half hidden grins. _Well_, she consoled herself, _at least now people are going to find out who you are. Maybe you'll even get a boyfriend_.

"What on Third Earth were you _doing_?" Lepra was fussing.

"Look, Lep!" Excitedly, Felline showed her sister what she'd fished out of the fountain, the gossiping nobles forgotten. "It's the new silver ten. The one with Prince Lion-O on it."

"Money?" Lepra put her face in her paws, bowing her head as if crushed by the weight of her shame. "You dove into the fountain in front of all these people to pick up a _coin_?"

"It's not just any coin," Felline said, still examining her prize. "It was new minted this summer. I haven't seen one yet. They'll be worth a lot someday, right? Besides, the likeness is supposed to be exact. Don't you want to see what he looks like?"

As she spoke, Felline turned the coin over, admiring the Eye of Thundera and the neat stamp of the royal treasury on the back, and then scrutinized the prince's profile on the front. He looked like a typical lion, and a young one at that, if the length of his mane was any indication. Felline pouted. She thought he'd be handsomer than that.

"We have money, Felline!" Lepra almost sobbed. "You don't need to steal someone else's wish. That's what you're doing, you know. _Stealing someone's wish_."

"Oh, come off it," she said, closing her fingers over the precious coin, but she did feel a wash of guilt. In spite of the heat of a few moments ago, the white fur of her arms was standing up.

After a moment, Lepra sighed. "Would you give me that?"

"What, the coin?" But when her sister shook her head, Felline realized Lepra meant the earring that had started this whole adventure. She reached up and touched her ear. "I thought I was rocking the one earring fashion."

"You look ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that you're soaked."

It was her turn to sigh. "I wish the clasp wouldn't keep coming undone."

"Ever think that was why Mother gave them to you?" Lips tight, Lepra inserted the earring and closed it, not meeting her sister's eye. "An old, worn-out, unwanted pair of earrings. Make a gift of them and then she couldn't be accused of throwing them away."

"Don't say things like that," Felline said sharply. She slapped at her sister's paws. "Mother wasn't like that."

"Wasn't she?" Lepra snapped.

Refusing to be drawn into another circular argument, Felline crossed her bare arms, shivering. Her dress was making a little ring of water around her feet, while the fountain continued plashing and burbling next to her. Yes, their mother was gone. She'd abandoned them in the night for reasons unknown, leaving their father sad and broken. But that didn't mean she hadn't loved _them_, her daughters. It wasn't like she was going to _replace_ them with something new, something _better_.

"You know that's why Father brought us here," Lepra persisted, her eyes narrowed to slits. "To Thundera. Mother always hated the country. She wanted to be part of grander things. He's hoping she'll come back to him. But she won't."

"He brought us here because he couldn't stand staying in the house where they'd been happy," Felline said, goaded into speaking. Why did Lepra have to be such a sourpuss? It was a beautiful day, this was a beautiful city. Father's promotion afforded them much more luxury than his wages as a town guard in Foret. They had a new, grand home, complete with servants and cooks and stables. Father had given them each a horse, and Lepra had named hers "Lightning." Felline was more romantic. Hers was "Blue Beauty." They had expensive clothes. They could take a stroll and throw coin into this monstrosity of a fountain and pretend it would grant wishes. Thundera's great white wall kept the other animals of Third Earth out, the only way in being the massive gate that led onto the plains to the south. Curving around the city from the north, the hazy purple mountains cradled them in rocky arms, the city pooling in a natural box canyon. They were safe from marauders here. Why, just that morning, an army patrol had arrested a pair of lizards stealing from the granaries and put them in the stocks for all to see. What more did her sister want? "Maybe Mother _will_ come back. When she's not angry anymore."

Felline could understand that, anyway. Sometimes she just had to get _out_. Away from her father, away from her sister. She could spend a whole day exploring the city by herself, watching the way the other Thunderians lived. But she always came back. Because she loved them.

"I think you'd better get this kitten home before she catches a cold," a male voice said, interrupting whatever retort Lepra had planned on making.

One of the nobles had approached after all, a handsome tom with silky, sable fur and yellow eyes. He smiled at Felline, winked, and began to remove his coat. "If you like, I could walk you home."

Felline could feel the blush in her cheeks and knew he could see it through her pale fur. It was happening at last! Someone was taking an interest in her, and he was quite possibly the finest cat she'd ever seen, tall and lean, and those _eyes_ . . .

And then he ruined it. He practically purred when he said, "When the kitten is a-bed, lady, perhaps you and I could go for a bite to eat together."

Because he wasn't talking to Felline. He was talking to Lepra.

Gods damn it _all_. Why did this always happen?

It wasn't Lepra's fault. She was a very elegant leopard who took after her mother. Her hair was long and golden, bound about with pearls, the rosettes across her slim shoulders velvet maroon. Her face wasn't quite tan, but more of a faded gold, and her eyes were warm amber. Her ears came to delicate points on the sides of her head. Behind coral pink lips, her fangs were wickedly inviting when she smiled the right way. A trick that Felline hadn't mastered.

Lepra was everything her little sister wasn't. Striking. Long-legged. Sultry as summer.

Snow leopards, on the other hand, were small cats – even their father was shorter than most men, but he was broad, strong, and knew his work better than those same men. As his daughter, Felline was frustratingly short. _Petite_, she corrected herself angrily. Even counting her cat's ears poking through her hair, the top of her head barely reached her sister's shoulder. Her long, puffy tail only made her look more like a child instead of a woman of eighteen. And that wasn't all. Unlike Lepra's molten eyes, which were long and tilted up at the outer edges, Felline's were big and round like a cub's, blue as a glacier, and rimmed in black. Even her rosettes were black, her face stark white except for the two black lines that curved from the inner corners of her eyes to the edges of her mouth. _Too cold_, a boy back home had once told her. _You're a cat of winter, Felline. I am going to lay with summer._ Which of course had sent her home in tears, after Lepra had punched the boy for his cheek.

Shoulders hunched, Felline sidestepped the tom when he moved to put his coat on her. She couldn't stop her tail from twitching side to side in annoyance, or the way her ears flattened to her wet hair. He looked taken aback by her rudeness, and then Lepra came to her rescue.

"That's very sweet of you," she said, phrasing the rebuff as kindly as possible, "but we know our way home. And if she goes, I go. We're twins, after all. We do everything together." She removed her own shawl and wrapped it around Felline.

"Some other time then," he called after them, disappointed and abashed, and belatedly added, "Ladies."

"Maybe," Lepra teasingly said over her shoulder.

"Not likely," Felline muttered.

* * *

_**A/N: **Greetings, Dear Readers!_

_Here it is, as promised - my new OC, Felline (feline, get it? I know, bad pun, but I like how feminine her name is. Felline is definitely too feminine for what is about to happen, but in this trait, I hope I have given her room to grow). I was so excited to see this reboot of the ThunderCats universe, and equally crushed to see it languish in hiatus. The world is so rich and the characters so likeable (or hateable, as the case may be) that my OC was born before I was many episodes in._

_This fanfic will follow the TV series, but I am not planning on rehashing every episode - only those that will further the relationship between Felline and Lion-O, and I hope to have many original "episodes" besides. Thus, if anyone who is not already a fan of the show stumbles upon "Cat's Cradle," he or she should have no problem following my version of the story._

_By the way, Felline and Lepra being twins doesn't mean much. I was thinking cats = litter, sisters = twins! heh_

_Well, I think this A/N has gone on long enough, hee. Please review! I hope to receive comments of all kinds - good, bad, and indifferent. I want to know what you think, and I am always open to constructive criticism. :3 Plus, I will return all reviews. Pinkie promise._

_And on that note, I shall strive to update soon. I hope to see you then!_

_Love,_

_Anne_


	2. All Cats are Gray in the Dark, part two

Early morning light glistened on fresh ink scrawled across parchment. Studying what she'd written, Felline bit the tip of her pen, thinking. Master Korvu, her tutor, a prim, fussy little cat with pince nez, a waistcoat, and a cravat, winced. She noticed, and quickly put the pen down. This wasn't Foret. She couldn't behave like a country girl here. Noticing _that_, Lepra put her own pen in her mouth, playing with it with the tip of her tongue, laughter that only her twin sister could see dancing in the amber depths of her eyes. Master Korvu pointedly, and a little uncomfortably, cleared his throat.

"Your conclusions?" he prompted.

They were studying ancient texts on the legend of technology. While Felline and her sister had had a scholastic teacher back home – the infamous Mistress Chat – Master Korvu approached their schooling in an entirely different manner. He taught poetry, grammar, history, moral philosophy, and rhetoric. He expected them to appraise the texts through a combination of reasoning and empirical evidence, and then debate their findings.

"It's a fairy tale," Lepra said dismissively, since Felline hadn't volunteered anything yet. Her parchment lay blank on the desktop. "The texts state that machinery could move on its own with the power of a storm. Yet, nothing struck by lightning has ever gained life of its own. You don't see houses walking down the street. They only burn."

"I disagree," Felline said slowly. "Machines were built for a purpose. A house's purpose is to stay put, but if the machine was built to, say, dig a hole, then that is what it would do."

"Why would you need a machine to dig a hole?" Lepra was sulking. "That's a big if."

"So are fairy tales," Felline countered. "Who would, or could, make something like this up, and why? I believe the texts are forgotten knowledge. Or maybe a warning."

Master Korvu, his arms crossed, nodded his head slowly and waited for Lepra's rebuttal.

Lepra shrugged. "If it exists, bring it to me. These are children's stories, nothing more. And the moral is clear: Technology is an impossibility, or at most an evil that is best left dead." She shut her book with a _thwap_ and sat back, her gaze straying to the window.

"Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist," Felline said softly. She was looking at a twice-copied reproduction of an artist's interpretation of what machinery might have looked like. It was some kind of transportation vehicle, which included partial diagrams and smudged equations in a language that no longer had any meaning to anyone except the clerics. "Pretending it doesn't exist doesn't keep it from reality."

"Lepra?" Master Korvu prompted. "Your response?"

Abruptly, Lepra stood up, some kind of turmoil etched in every elegant line of her body. "I'm sorry, I'm not feeling very well," she said. "Please excuse me."

Master Korvu was half out of his chair, but Lepra was out the door. "Never mind, never mind," he said to no one, flustered. Patting at his pompadour, he sat back down. Polished his pince nez before snapping them neatly back on his nose. Looked at Felline like a dog that had been kicked. "Shall we move on to literature?"

The rest of her lessons seemed to take forever. When Korvu finally released her, she immediately went in quest of her sister.

She found Lepra in the stables. Felline opened the door to dusty coolness, shafts of sunlight that caressed the stone floor, and the smell of horses. Picking up the hem of her skirt so that it wouldn't drag in the sand, she pushed open the gate to Lightning's stall and peered inside.

Lepra sat curled up between Lightning's front hooves, her head against his cobalt chest, her claws combing through his stiff, cornflower-blue mane. For his part, Lightning was dozing in a sunbeam, the tip of his tail curling up and then straightening in contentment.

Felline pulled a carrot out of her sash, padding over to her sister. Her bare feet sank in the sand lining the stall, which was so fine it held perfect prints. Offering the carrot to a suddenly awake and interested Lightning, she knelt and touched her sister's ankle. "What's wrong, Lep? It's not like you to take off like that. That's my trick."

"I hate it here," Lepra muttered, turning her face into Lightning's chest. The horse flexed his two toed hooves in the sand, draping one foreleg across his mistress. Hinting for more treats, he nibbled her hair. "I just . . . couldn't stand it any longer."

Mouth open, Felline stared at what she could see of her sister – the curve of one slim, spotted shoulder, the back of her dress, a few wisps of golden hair. "You mean, you hate Thundera?"

"I do." Lepra's voice was muffled. "I'm homesick. I want to go home."

Felline couldn't believe it. There was nothing in Foret. _Nothing_. A bunch of farms, wooded valleys, rolling hills, and the same people, day in and day out. Felline had always felt like she was suffocating there. Which must have been how her mother felt and why she'd left. Master Korvu alone provided more food for thought than the entire town library back home, with its grand total of four books. It was inconceivable that Lepra wasn't as happy here as she was. Happier, even. Lepra had received more than one offer of courtship since they'd moved here, but she'd refused them all, which hadn't thrilled their father overly much.

How could she not love Thundera? It was the proof of the cat's wealth on Third Earth, a glimmering jewel in the center of their vast, resourceful lands. And King Claudus's palace, Cat's Lair, lay like a proud sphinx in its heart, a monument to their status as lords over all animals. There was nothing they couldn't buy or do in the royal city.

Thinking about that, Felline realized what would cheer up her sister.

"Let's go hunting," she said.

Lepra snorted. "What?"

"Hunting," Felline repeated, grinning. "There's a wildlife preserve on the river side of the first quarter. We wouldn't even have to leave the city, and it'll give us a chance to stretch our legs."

"How do you know about this?" Lepra asked sternly, but she'd stopped hiding against Lightning and was smiling in an indulgent way.

Felline shrugged. "I came across it accidentally," she said vaguely. That had been one of her "wander days," as her family put it. She'd roamed all the upper districts of the city so far, but hadn't yet found her wanders taking her to the slums, and that was just fine with her. "All we have to do is buy a license at the gate and we can hunt there. We can even keep what we kill."

"All right. We'd better change out of these dresses, then," Lepra said amicably enough. She stood, brushing sand off her skirt. Lightning whinnied, thrusting his square head at his mistress. Smiling, Lepra gave him a pat. "Don't worry, darling. We'll be back for you soon enough."

..::~*~::..

The chib-chib knew they were there.

The two women had been tracking this particular buck for the better part of an hour, chasing his blue striped hide through the shadows of trees and underbrush. He stood now in a clearing, head high, steel blue beak turned into the wind. The breeze teased at his floppy ears and white mane. Eyeing his four, curved, dangerous horns, Felline slipped off Blue Beauty. She patted her horse's neck soothingly, and the mare, trained for hunting as all horses were, became a cobalt statue. Satisfied, Felline crept forward on all fours.

Peering from beneath a bush, one the chib-chib had already stripped of nuts, she nocked an arrow. The chib-chib gave a questioning warble, listening. He lifted one delicate hoof, the fur of his fetlock a spray of feathery white, and then put it back down in the exact same spot of mulch. Not breathing, Felline drew her arrow.

She released it. Her shot went wide, however, and the chib-chib broke for cover.

All feline grace, Lightning surged out of the woods, Lepra astride him, her bow taut between her hands. Fierce as only a cat could be, she was standing in her stirrups, fangs bared as her mount charged her prey. She released, and her arrow found its mark. Brought up short, the chib-chib chirped once in distress before crashing to the ground. It lay still.

With a whoop, Felline ran to her sister. "Nice shot!"

"Thank you, but what happened? Haven't you been practicing?" Lepra dismounted, bow in hand. "You shouldn't have missed."

"I know," Felline grumbled, embarrassed. She'd never been very good at archery, but the daughters of noblemen were deemed too . . . _girly_, was the best way she could think to put it . . . to learn other martial arts.

"Help me with this," Lepra said, gesturing at the fallen chib-chib. She'd already broken down and stored her bow, Lightning's reins looped around her arm. She reached down and grasped the bigger pair of the chib-chib's horns.

Quickly, Felline put her own bow away and whistled for Blue Beauty. She grasped the chib-chib's tail above its fanned tip and together, the sisters hauled the carcass to the stream they'd crossed not too long ago. Whickering, Blue Beauty and Lightning picked their way to the water and lowered their heads to drink.

It wasn't until the sisters had skinned and butchered the chib-chib and they were washing off the blood in the rocky stream that Felline noticed something odd about Lepra's left paw.

She was wearing a ring. A gold one, with a small, clear stone. On the third finger.

Felline snatched at her sister's paw, unintentionally splashing them both. "Where did you get _that_?" she spluttered, dripping.

For a long moment, Lepra didn't answer, staring at the ring while Felline stared open mouthed at her. Then, softly, she said, "Rachan gave it to me. Before we left Foret."

"Rachan – that farmer back home?" Felline gasped. "But – Father –"

"Won't agree," Lepra said sadly. "I know. Rachan said he would come for me when he saved enough money. Although, we don't know when that will be. I'll wait. I'll wait forever if I have to."

Lepra lifted her left paw with the right, putting the ring to her lips. A single tear escaped her closed eyes.

Felline was dumbfounded. She remembered Rachan as a shy, clumsy tom, a bit on the chubby side. What she couldn't remember was him ever being alone with her sister, ever even _speaking_ more than two words at a time to her. But, if what she was saying was true, then –

"Where did he get a ring like that?" Felline wondered.

"It was his mother's," Lepra said, fondness shining in the gold-brown depths of her eyes.

"How long?" Shock stole the strength of her voice, and it came out a whisper.

"He asked me to marry him about six months ago," Lepra answered, and smiled ruefully. "The day we left. As for how long I've loved him, I don't know when it started. It happened so gradually."

"But . . . he's a farmer. Back in Foret."

"Yes."

"That means you'll _leave_." Felline put her ears back in accusation.

Lepra blinked. "Oh, but that won't be for a long time. Years, perhaps."

She said it so casually, the sorrow in her voice due to her current separation from Rachan rather than a future separation from Thundera and her family. She showed absolutely no hesitation when speaking of her engagement, as if she _wanted_ to be a farmer's wife.

Sleek, sultry Lepra, in an apron and bare feet, covered in pastry flour!

"What about all those _men_," Felline almost spat the word, "who keep asking Father for your favor? He won't refuse them forever –"

"You have to promise me something," Lepra cried, interrupting her, and threw her arms around her sister. She spoke into Felline's neck. "Promise you won't tell him. _Please_, Felline. Do this for me."

Still upset, Felline didn't answer, but she held her sister as tightly as she could.

* * *

_**A/N: **Happy Friday, Dear Readers!_

_Or, not so happy. I have the start of a cold, ugh, just enough that I feel terrible. I'm not sure how coherent this chapter is, but I did my best for you. :3 I sincerely hope everyone who celebrates had a fantastic Halloween!_

_I always wondered where the cats did their hunting. I mean, it seems like they never leave the city unless they're sent out, like Panthro and Grune. Besides, the "plains" in front of the city are all dirt, and the mountains don't exactly look accessible. Oh, and by the way, does anyone know what the Thunderian horse-things are called?_

_Reviewer Thanks! This is always my very favorite part of updating! :3 **Night Whisperer** (I'm surprised that there aren't more Lion-O/OC stories . . . I mean, Lion-O IS kind of dreamy. Or is that just me? Hee! I really appreciate your review, and I will try super hard to finish "Cat's Cradle." Believe it or not, I have the last chapter written. I'm sort of writing backward from there . . . Does anybody else ever do that?), **J.A.M.B **(I love when stories can make me feel like I'm there with the characters, so I'm happy my descriptions got a good review - thank you for that! I'll try not to let the story go too slow, though - I feel like that's an equal danger. I'll start converging with the first season soon.), and **Heart of the Demons **(Onward, ho! lol). All of you, thank you again for taking the time to leave reviews, and special thanks for the fave._

_To all of you, I hope you continue to enjoy this story, and maybe feel a little affection for my OCs. (I totally feel like a dork saying that, but it's the truth.)_

_Humbly yours,_

_Anne_


	3. Dead Cat on the Line, part one

No matter how she looked at it, Lepra's engagement to Rachan the farmer was, to put it mildly, unaccountable.

To put it bluntly, the news made Felline feel like a two week cub: blind, self centered, and worthless.

Alone, she wandered the city streets, passing walls crawling with vibrant green ivy, crossing bridges that spanned the cliffs leading down to the slums. The Rufus River cut Thundera in half, fed by the great waterfall constantly pouring down the bluff behind Cat's Lair. Her feet took her as far south as she could go without leaving the upper districts. She stared morosely down at the rapid blue water of the Rufus, which coursed in the general direction of the great front gate.

How could she not have known this about her own twin sister? Felline put her elbows on the bridge railing and her face in her paws, studying the red tinged darkness behind her eyelids.

Lepra was engaged. She was a grown up woman, in spite of the mere eight minutes between them. She was so far beyond Felline that they were like two different creatures. With a sigh, Felline dropped her paws. The summer daylight dazzled her, and she could smell roses. Restless, she stepped higher on the rail, her glacial eyes on the blue sky. For six months, Lepra had carried this secret all by herself. Not once did she betray a hint of sadness for herself; she'd only seemed concerned for her sister.

Well, it wasn't her sole secret anymore. The least Felline could do was try to understand her point of view.

"Hey – um, excuse me?"

Startled, Felline turned around. She had a feeling that the guard standing behind her, one paw timidly raised, an embarrassed expression on his gray face, had been calling to her for several minutes. His eyes beneath his open faced helm were an even lighter gray, his fur black as soot.

"Yes?" A hot breeze plucked at her skirt and the fur of her tail when she hopped down.

Relaxing now that he had her attention, he smiled, easy and friendly. "I thought for a moment I had a jumper on my hands, but you don't seem that foolish to me."

Felline eyed him. He had a nice face, she decided. Less pretentious than some of the nobles, more intelligent than most farmers.

_And there I go again_, she berated herself. _Lepra loves one of those farmers, so shut up_.

"You're Commander Snow's daughter, aren't you?" the guard asked.

She raised her eyebrows. "One of them."

"Yeah, I know, brilliant deduction, right?" He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck with his free paw, his halberd clutched in the right. "I mean, you look just like him."

"I do?" Felline giggled, and a blush overspread his pale cheeks. Well, that was charming.

"No – I don't mean –" He stopped, confused, and then started laughing when he saw she wasn't offended. "Yes, I do mean it. Just like him. That's the commander's Hairy Eyeball we all know and love. My name's Bastien, by the way." He stuck out his paw.

"Felline." They shook.

"That's pretty," he said seriously. Then, he coughed and released her, looking at something over her head. Not that he had to look far up. She barely reached the middle of his chest. "Anyway, it's my job to keep damsels from flinging themselves off the bridge, or something. When I saw you, and I thought you might be the commander's daughter, and . . . yeah."

"There's no crime in saying hello." She couldn't help returning his smile. "Hairy Eyeball, huh? That's funny. My sister calls it Stink Eye. It's the one thing I do better than she does."

His laughter was louder that time. "So, do you come here often?" he asked, sweeping out his arms to encompass the bridge and the few pedestrians moving either direction. Like all palace guards, he wore a blue tunic fastened with the red jewel that symbolized the Eye of Thundera and silver greaves over black trousers. "What brings a pretty girl to a boring place like this?"

He was flirting with her! Felline dropped her eyes, face warm. Before she could answer, however, a distant cry made him fix his pale gray eyes on the city wall.

"Something approaches! Sound the alarm!"

He put his paw on her shoulder and as politely as possible pushed her behind him, still staring over the edge of the bridge. Like the growl of a great cat, one of the giant horns set in the domed watchtowers of the wall began to speak. The horn looked like the shell of some deep sea creature, held aloft and pointed in toward the city by a purple ribbon, requiring but a single cat to blow it. It had a deep, resonant voice, thrumming in Felline's chest. The noise was incredible. She clapped her paws over her ears, but it didn't help.

The horn quieted as quickly as it had started. Setting his halberd to the side, Bastien leaned over the sun warmed bridge rail.

He wasn't the only one gawking. Several other people lined up, chatting and asking unanswerable questions. Curious, Felline joined them, looking down.

"There," Bastien said to her in a low voice, pointing. Not below, into the slums, but out, past the great wall.

Felline narrowed her eyes. At first, all she could see was a smudge on the horizon, but soon enough it resolved itself into some kind of flatbed wagon, drawn by a score of enslaved lizards, four abreast and five deep. Each thin chested, crook legged reptile bore a collar and a chain, shackled to his neighbor. Shuffling in their chains, they grimaced with the weight of their load, or the dryness of their throats. _Probably both_, she thought judiciously. Dust billowed behind the wagon's high wheels, obscuring the thin white ribbon of the road and part of the cloudless sky. Lashed atop the wagon, what looked like an enormous spiky burr made of rock and yellow crystal perched.

"What is that?" she breathed. It was hideous.

Bastien shook his head. "I'm not sure. But I think –"

This time, the sound of horses interrupted. Bastien sucked in a breath as King Claudus rode beneath the bridge, followed by Lord Jaga, the high cleric; the princes, Tygra and Lion-O; and a cluster of palace guards. Felline was so surprised to catch sight of her father – the armor couldn't hide a snow leopard's tail – that she didn't get a good look at either her king or his two sons before they galloped around a bend in the road and were lost to sight.

All those lizards approaching the city were making her nervous. "I'd better go home," she said softly, backing away.

"Wait." Bastien caught up to her in two strides, taking hold of her paw, forcing her to stop. He bent close, gray eyes wide and serious. "Could I see you again?"

"Maybe," she said, thinking of Lepra, but the corners of her mouth curved up. "I'd like that."

"Good." Bastien grinned and waved, jogging back to his original position. He was really nice. Felline looked over her shoulder once or twice before she reached the end of the bridge, and caught him watching her sidelong. At the intersection, she picked up her skirt and ran for home, giddy laughter bubbling past her lips. Wait until Lepra heard about this.

..::~*~::..

King Claudus was possibly the biggest cat Felline had ever seen. He exuded raw physical power, his riotous red mane and beard turning him into something like a burning sun, his bare arms solid muscle beneath his honey gold fur.

The night was cool enough for cloaks. Felline and Lepra stood with what felt like the entire population of Thundera at the bottom of the steps cut into the wall surrounding Cat's Lair, while the king raised his paws for silence from the balcony above it. A festival had been called shortly after the arrival of the wagon and its mysterious cargo, which was now on display in the center of the courtyard. A ring of torches and pennant flags had been strung up around tables laden with grilled fish, barbecued haunches of meat, roasted vegetables, fresh baked bread, and chilled fruit. Strings of yellow lanterns crisscrossed the entire courtyard, swaying slightly in the breeze. Third Earth's first moon, the tiny, white Cheshire, was already high in the sky. Leo, the gas giant named after the king who had built Thundera, lifted its great, swirled rim above the horizon, shedding pale blue light where the torches did not reach.

The king's powerful voice echoed around the courtyard. "It was many seasons ago when I sent out Generals Grune and Panthro to find the fabled Book of Omens. While it remains lost, Grune has returned, with tales of adventure, great treasure," he gestured at the ugly crystal studded rock towering over the Thunderians in the courtyard, "and new lands to conquer. Today, we show him our appreciation!"

The sisters clapped along with everyone else, but Felline's ears shrank back and Lepra started to giggle. "Oh, my, he's . . ."

"Huge," Felline finished, awed. General Grune was a brown sabertoothed cat even bigger than Claudus, one ear a tattered mess under his steel, spike topped cap, one fang as long as Felline's forearm protruding from between his lips to hang over his impressive beard. The other fang, she could only guess, had been broken off sometime in the past. He did not smile as cheers erupted from the watching crowd, but he bowed slightly, one fist over his heart.

"There are the princes," Lepra said, elbowing her sister under their cloaks.

Felline's ears pricked forward. Lepra was right. She had been so mesmerized by the king and his surviving general that she hadn't noticed the princes standing at attention to Claudus's right. Prince Tygra was the first tiger she'd ever seen, his fur the color of fire and banded with black. Like hers, his face was white, two broad, curved, black stripes defining his cheekbones. He was a man grown, about twenty, self assured and comfortable in the spotlight.

Prince Lion-O, next to all these impressive cats, seemed plain. He shared his father's coloring, but he was more slender, his mane short and spiky, his jaw as clean as a girl's. Even so far away, Felline could tell he was scowling.

"Wonder what's got his fur in a bunch," she mused, and Lepra snorted on a laugh.

At a cue from King Claudus, the festivities began when a band started to play. It included a concertina, a saxophone, and a lute. Excitedly, the sisters ran off, holding paws so they wouldn't get separated. They passed kitchen and merchant stalls, dodged playing children and grown cats with plates in their paws, paused to observe some of the carnival games. There were fire breathers, belly dancers, sword handlers, buskers, and bookies placing bets on the contenders for the games, all joyously adding to the noise. The two women kept their purses in their sashes, ever alert for pickpockets.

Felline wouldn't go near General Grune's thorny rock. Its crystals shone like bronze mirrors, bigger than she. She kept thinking of a gargantuan spider watching her out of its many eyes.

"That's disgusting," Lepra commented when Felline shared her unease. "Never mind, they have dancing!"

Luck was with them. There were so many people having fun that even Felline was asked to dance. Her heart soared in glee while she stepped in time with her partner, Lepra close by, twirling around and around until all the watching faces became a happy blur.

Through it all, Felline kept her eye out for that nice guard from earlier, the one named Bastien. Every time she saw a black tom, she hoped it was him, but it never was.

"He'll find you," Lepra whispered in her ear, squeezing her fingers sympathetically.

"Not before every tom in Thundera finds you first," Felline groused.

Lepra looked pained, and Felline was immediately sorry for her thoughtlessness. But she couldn't help it. Every couple of minutes, without fail, some man or boy approached them – stuttering, blushing, suave, or cocky, it didn't matter – and requested a favor from her sister. Each time, while she apologized for not having any favors on her, Lepra would somehow make sure he could see her ring, and away he would slink. Not one of them looked twice at petite Felline.

"How can you be so bold to wear that?" she asked at last, worried for her sister.

Lepra glanced at the ring. Her eyes never strayed far from it. "As long as Father doesn't see it, I don't see why it shouldn't fulfill its purpose."

When the music ended and people began moving toward the stadium for the games, Felline resignedly thanked her last partner and said goodbye. She wanted to stay on the dance floor, to hold on to the memory as long as she could. However, the flow of the crowd gave her zero choice in the matter; the sisters went, also.

Before they'd gone far, Lepra gave a sudden gasp. "Felline – your earring!"

Felline's paws flew to her ears. Sure enough, one was bare. "Oh, no," she moaned, scanning the ground at her feet. There were so many cats here, bumping into her, tromping across the ground. How was she going to find it in all this confusion?

"Excuse us, please. Sorry – excuse us . . ." Lepra clamped her fingers on Felline's wrist, holding steady against the tide.

"It's probably on the dance floor," Felline managed, and Lepra nodded. Grimly, she towed her little sister out of the worst of the crowds, but no matter how hard they looked in the flickering lamplight, they couldn't find the earring.

"Why did you wear them tonight of all nights?" Lepra asked, exasperated. "You were asking to lose it!"

Felline's ears drooped. The truth was, she hadn't thought about it. And now it was gone. "Let's just go," she said dully.

She turned, and promptly ran face first into someone's tunic. "Excuse me!" she cried, embarrassed. Then she looked up. "Oh!"

"Hi," Bastien said, grinning. Without his helm, he turned out to have black hair, brushed behind his pointed ears, sticking up in the back. He held out his paw, palm up. "Is this what you were looking for?"

"My earring!" Felline snatched it from him and examined it. It was indeed hers, and miraculously still in one piece.

"That's a pretty big coincidence," Lepra said flatly. She put her hands on her hips as she regarded Bastien through narrowed amber eyes.

"Not really. I've been tailing you for a while," Bastien admitted, a little abashed. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "I'm afraid I'm not a very good dancer. I followed you from over there and overheard you talking about it. It just happens that I saw the earring first. Name's Bastien." He did not offer her his paw.

"I'm Felline's sister, Lepra." She smiled cautiously. "Nice to meet you."

He nodded. "Likewise."

"Thank you for finding it," Felline said. Blushing, she smiled at Bastien.

"No problem. It's your mother's, right?"

"Yes, but how did you know?"

"I, ah, might have heard about the fountain," he said, eyes innocently on the moons.

Felline sagged as realization hit. He must know the guard that had caught her diving for coins. How utterly mortifying.

"There is something else I'd like to ask you." Bastien scraped a toe in the dirt. "I'm participating in the games. I was hoping you'd do me the honor of letting me wear your favor."

Favors were small badges handmade by maids that they could pin on their favorite toms, a sort of good luck charm for game contenders. Felline stared at him, lips parted. She'd never in her life been asked to bestow one, so she'd stopped making them years ago. "I – I'm sorry," she managed at last. "I don't . . . have any."

He seemed to hear what she meant, that she would have given him one if she could, and brightened immediately. "Well, I suppose I'll have to take something else with me, then. It wouldn't be right to ask you for that," he indicated the earring, "so I'll settle for this."

Quick as lightning, he leaned down and kissed her cheek.

* * *

_**A/N: **A new day, and another update! Whee, the convergence with Episode 1-1 has begun!_

_Ohhh, Felline, what are you getting yourself into?! heehee_

_If there are ever any details that I don't get right, please let me know. For instance, I decided to give the moons and the river names, and I don't actually know how old Tygra is, or Lion-O (his age determines Felline's, just as Tygra's determines Lion-O's - I gave them an eight-year difference). I'm just winging it here, hehe. I like playing with cultures and social mores, and this chapter is meant to focus more on Thundera itself rather than the issues of the royals._

_Anybody like Bastien? I chose to name him that because I was thinking of the goddess Bast, and how that made me think of a bastion. Sounds right for a town guard._

_Ummm, I think that's it, so on to the next order of business!_

_Reviewer Thanks! Only one this time, but I am even more grateful because of it! :3 **Heart of the Demons **(Wow, that is praise indeed! Thank you!)._

_Enjoy your Saturday, Dear Readers! And please leave a review, okay?_

_Love,_

_Anne of the Sniffle Bug *cough cough sneeze*_


	4. Dead Cat on the Line, part two

Bastien ran off, leaving a whole mix of feelings behind him. Several other toms, all dressed the same in white tunics and black breeches, darted out of the crowd and surrounded him. They eyed the sisters with keen feline interest.

"Who's she, Bast? She's cute."

Felline blushed, the blood rising so fast it felt like she'd walked into a furnace.

"What about that other one? Think I could get a kiss, too?"

"The snow leopard's awful young, isn't she?"

Although he didn't look back at her, Bastien laughed, shoving the tom who had spoken last. "You think I'm a fool? Use your eyes, if you have them. That's a woman, there."

Another one joined in the laughter. "It's the small ones who are the most fun, isn't that right, Bast?"

Joking and shouting, the whole group disappeared into the stadium.

And then, from behind, a raspy voice said, "Now that is what I like to see. Well done, Felline."

Both girls jumped.

"Oh – Father! Hello," Felline said, attempting to smooth her tail, which had puffed up in fright.

"We didn't expect to see you tonight," Lepra added, as calm as if reading poetry for Master Korvu, although she had hidden her left paw in the folds of her skirt. She bent down ever so slightly and planted a kiss on Snow's spotted cheek.

Felline had to reach up, but she gave him a welcome kiss on his other cheek. "Are you off duty?"

Commander Snow had a spine of steel, in more ways than one. He carried himself with military precision, his whiskers combed back neatly. Although he had removed his helm, he still wore most of his uniform, including a dark blue cloak that fluttered in the breeze. His fur was grayer than his younger daughter's, salt and pepper versus stars and night sky. He was easily as wide as both of his girls put together, his paws large enough to engulf theirs. "I have been relieved for the games. I shall escort you inside the stadium. With our best participating, I cannot allow my daughters to go unprotected. There are many alley cats about."

"Thank you, Father." Lepra threaded her right arm in his left. "It was kind of you to think of us."

Some of the austerity left Snow's grizzled face. He patted her paw where it rested lightly on his forearm. Like for their mother, Snow seemed to have a soft spot when it came to his eldest daughter.

Felline took his other arm, and he smiled at her. "You've done well, little one," he said.

Puzzled, she looked up at him as they passed under an arch and into the stadium. They turned left, following a stream of cats up the narrow stairs. "Father?"

"That boy, Bastien. He's one of mine. He's a good lad, if a bit lacking in discipline. Nothing that a little time won't teach him."

"Ah." That explained a lot.

"He seems taken with you."

"Father, please. I just met him today." Felline kept her eyes on her feet, uncomfortable with the subject.

It was very dark in the stadium. The only light came from below, a wan blue glow, and from the weak moonlight above. Snow led the way to three seats to the right of the royal box.

"I am aware," he said, helping Lepra sit before taking his own seat. "I expected you to be first," he said to her. "If you weren't so picky, you could be married by now."

Lepra said nothing. She lowered her head, her golden hair sliding over her shoulder to obscure her face. For just a moment, Felline could almost believe it was her mother sitting there.

But her mother had left the man she'd sworn to spend her life with. The same man Felline called Father. Love apparently hadn't been enough to make her stay. On the other hand, Lepra would not break her vows with Rachan, not in a million years.

"Leave Lep alone," Felline admonished. She took her seat between them. A small, cautious sniff of the air near his shoulder was enough to arouse suspicion. "What is the matter with you, Father? Are you in your cups?"

"Just like a woman," Snow laughed raucously. "Have a pint or two and she thinks a man is in liquor. You'd better not nag that lad, understand? I don't want to hear you've chased him off. You may not get another one."

A few of the cats near them were smirking, and Felline could have crumbled to dust with shame.

"I hope you waited until you went off duty before you started drinking," she snapped, and turned a stiff back to him, putting her arm protectively around her sister. Snow did this every now and again, saying cruel things and then chiding them for being too sensitive if they dared respond, but she'd always excused his behavior, attributing it to the state her mother had left him in. But to behave like this, in front of all these people, and in uniform! She refused to acknowledge him after that, instead fixing her gaze on the royal box to her right, five tiers above her head.

A sculpture of a stylized lion's head protruded from the stone wall below the balcony, frozen forever mid roar. The balcony itself was lit within by torches, rosy and warm, although Felline couldn't see its occupants until King Claudus stood to address the audience.

His speeches were short, she was learning. Concise.

"These games are dedicated to the life of an outstanding general and loyal friend," he boomed, "who gave all he had in the name of Thundera." Claudus raised his goblet. "To Panthro!"

"To Panthro!" four voices repeated from the box, and the crowds in the stands once more erupted in cheers, this time for their king's fallen friend. Trumpets added their brassy voices in fanfare and then stilled. Amid a buzz of talk and last minute bets, the crowd settled down expectantly.

Felline gazed across the stadium. Banners bearing the Eye of Thundera hung at intervals along the top, while four palace guards were positioned midway down the walls at the cardinal compass points. At the bottom, a blue pool was the source of the strange fairy light. Growing from the pool, a twisted, gnarled tree sent branches that were wide enough for four horsemen to ride abreast clawing for the sky. Its leafless limbs were crimson, and from the highest, a bell depended. Viewed from her spot high in the stands, both tree and bell seemed small to Felline, though she knew that the bell alone could hold several cats inside.

Two contenders in white tunics walked onto the sands and jumped across the water to one of the lower branches, where they waited for the trumpet signaling the start of the match. The goal: To reach and ring the bell before their opponent. It was a test of skill and strategy. Felline watched as cat after cat was thrown, kicked, or simply knocked off the tree by his opponent to splash into the pool so far below. And the bell rang. And rang. And rang.

When Bastien's turn came, he was pitted against an older, bigger cat, but he never let his opponent touch him. Nimble as a chib-chib, he sprang from limb to limb, once using all four sets of claws to hang upside down from a branch. When the other cat leaped for him, Bastien swung out his legs and sank his heels into the other's belly as he passed overhead. Still swinging with their combined momentum, Bastien helped the other cat find the pool and then made his leisurely way to the bell amid a storm of laughter from the stands. He raised one arm, turning slowly, acknowledging their praise. Felline wondered if he was looking for her. Lepra squeezed her fingers with a smile.

On her other side, her father shifted.

"What's this?" As if waking from a snooze, Snow sat forward, glacial eyes fixed on the entrance to the back concourse. Two figures emerged, dressed in royal blue. By the stripes in his orange hair, Felline recognized Prince Tygra. That meant the smaller redheaded tom was Prince Lion-O.

After a heartbeat of uncomprehending silence, the audience lost its collective head. Their cheers drowned out the trumpet signaling the start of the game.

Lion-O was first off the mark. He sailed up the largest branch, making it look effortless as he snaked along its curves. Tygra didn't let him get far, however; the bigger cat jumped for his brother, grinning like a fiend. With a twist of his lower body, fingers sunk deep in the bark of the tree, Lion-O aimed a snap kick at Tygra's head.

Tygra stopped Lion-O's foot with one paw and kept coming, landing a solid punch to the younger prince's jaw that jarred him loose. Amid deafening cheers and groans, Lion-O fell, bouncing once before he flipped and landed on all fours, his claws leaving deep furrows in wood. Furious, he flung himself back up the tree, gaining on his laughing brother. He kicked and swung at the older prince while they ran, connecting once with Tygra's temple. Like a compressed spring, Tygra struck back and knocked Lion-O off the branch again. Sitting with her paws pressed over her mouth, Felline fancied she could hear their snarls and growls over the screaming crowd.

Snow's commentary was emotionless. "Hotheaded fool. It's done," he said as if bored. He put his ankle on his thigh and sat back, apparently ready to resume his nap.

Tygra gained the highest branch and stood there, feet wide. "When it comes to everything except the crown," he taunted, his voice cutting through those of his fans, "you're always going to be second place."

Lion-O didn't bother to respond, but made one last desperate dash – not for the bell, as Felline would have done, but for his brother. Who was waiting for him. Tygra didn't pull his punch this time, and when Lion-O began to fall, he had nothing but air between him and failure.

The crowd gasped as one and then went dead silent. All could hear the splash as the young prince hit the glowing water head first.

"Is he going to come up?" Lepra whispered uncertainly.

"Yes, there he is." Felline's heart was beating against her ribcage almost painfully.

Lion-O surfaced to Tygra ringing the bell and the renewed shrieks of the audience.

"When are you gonna learn, little brother?" Tygra bellowed. The victor perched easily atop the swinging bell, one hand on his hip, the other holding the bell's chain. Not once had he lost his grin.

Below, Lion-O treaded water, his short mane plastered to his head. Though she couldn't see his face clearly, Felline thought he looked defeated in an entirely different way.

* * *

_**A/N: **Greetings and salutations!_

_I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm breaking these chapters in really weird places. I usually plot them out better than that. I suppose it's because Felline has so much of the limelight right now. I'll try to get the breaks under control going forward._

_A note on the previous chapter: The awesome Heart of the Demons let me know that Tygra is twenty, not twenty-five as I had guessed (woohoo, I got Lion-O's age right! *punches the air*). O_o Tygra seemed so much older to me! LOL! Anyway, that is now fixed. It's a THREE year age gap. *commits it to memory*_

_I'm working on the final "part" of this section, but I haven't decided yet how a certain portion of it will play out. It may take longer for me to update. And it may not. Just putting that out there. Not that it's important. LOL._

_Reviewer Thanks! **Night Whisperer **(Two for the price of one! I'm so happy you came back. And, even though this is going to make me sound like some kind of creepy stalker - I'm not, I swear! - I love that you and I apparently think alike. After watching the Pumyra arc, I had the exact same thought: Why can't Lion-O find happiness too? *sob* So that's what I'm trying to do. We'll see if I succeed. heh. On an entirely different note, I had a moment of shame. I wish I could say I was awesome and thought Bastien through enough to make him a villain, but I honestly didn't. He's questionable, yeah, but in a typical harmlessly randy guy way. LOL. Thank you SO MUCH for reviewing!) and **Heart of the Demons** (Thank you for being awesomely nice and helpful! Really. That's the heart and soul of it.). You guys are the best. I can't express how much I ADORE seeing that little review alert!_

_I'm off! Please leave a review, okay? I'll keep my germs to myself because nobody deserves to be sick like this, ugh._

_Anne_


	5. Dead Cat on the Line, part three

"They're competitive. The princes," Snow explained as he herded his daughters down the stadium steps, his broad shoulders protecting them from the worst of the crush. Sounding much more sober, he refastened his cloak and smoothed his whiskers. "I had better return. Prince Lion-O is known for wandering off."

Felline didn't want to admit it, but he took a great weight with him when he left. She loved her father. She owed everything she had to him. Even Lepra. If she could help her emotions, she wouldn't think bad things of him. And if cats were birds, they would fly.

"I'm hungry. Want to get something to eat?" she asked.

"What about Bastien? Don't you want to wait for him?" Lepra asked seriously.

Felline drew a breath of cold night air through her nose. Tilting her head back, she held up her paws, white as the Cheshire moon. "I'm sure he'll find me if he wants to see me," she said softly. "I'm not exactly hard to spot in a crowd."

She wouldn't say it out loud, but she really hoped he would. Her head was full of nothing but him. How they'd met, the things he'd said. The kiss. With his friends, he'd seemed different, and they'd scared her a little. She wanted it to be just them one more time.

But he never showed.

Lepra was the one who spotted her yawning and suggested they go home. A little let down, she nevertheless agreed, but she balked when it came to passing by the crystal studded rock, which was roughly the size of their house, and insisted they go around. However, they found their way blocked by a large croud of cats. The courtyard was dark here, just outside the ring of torches. No one was dancing. No one was even moving.

"What's all this?" Lepra wondered aloud.

"I think –" Felline started, standing on her toes, but she couldn't see over the shoulders of the people in front of her. With a grunt, she hunched down instead, peering through their legs. "Oh, no. We can't get through. It's the stocks."

"_Here_?" Lepra scrunched up her nose. "Why on Third Earth did they bring lizards up here?"

The fear in her voice was understandable. The lizards were the cats' greatest enemy, after all. Given the choice, the sisters would rather not get close to them, immobilized by the stocks or not.

"Shh," Felline cautioned her. Her ears swiveled, picking up on the angry voices in the center of the horseshoe of people ("Yah! Get out of here!"). She heard something else, too. The breathless _fwoosh_ of fire in the wind. Only there was no wind.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed as the cats in front of her suddenly backed up, knocking her down. Through a break in their legs, she could see a pair of toms at the front, waving burning torches dangerously close to the imprisoned lizards, who were hissing in fear with the strange, dry rasp of reptiles. Something that looked horribly like blood was dried into their scales – by the skins rotting on the ground, it was tomato. One lizard, blue and white with fin like protrusions along his jaw, closed bulbous yellow eyes, vainly trying to get away from the fire. The tom with the torch snarled with each stabbing pass, as if he wanted to hit the lizard but didn't quite have the guts to do it.

Lepra hurried to help her sister stand before she got trampled, but then moaned in dismay. They were in the thick of the mess now, buffeted on all sides by what was quickly becoming a mob. Frantic, Felline's eyes flicked from face to face, but there was no help; no game contenders in their white tunics, no palace guards in blue. Where was Bastien, or her father? Shouldn't someone have been watching the lizards? The men and women near them weren't even nobles. They were a bunch of scummy alley cats.

Then, a lean, muscled cat sprinted past her, right up to the front, so close he almost bumped into her.

Lepra's claws were hurting her, but she made no move to dislodge her sister. Because it was Prince Lion-O up there, holding out his arms to shield the lizards from the cats. Up close, he was surprisingly pretty for a lion, with his subtle honey gold facial markings and cream colored paws. He had a stubborn tilt to his mouth that was reminiscent of teenagers everywhere. _The coin really didn't do him justice_, she thought dimly.

"These lizards have done us no harm," he said loudly. He spoke in a clear tenor, and the fires picked out green highlights in his blue eyes. "They don't deserve this!"

"You're right, Prince Lion-O," an alley cat answered, his thick, guttural voice making Felline flatten her ears. He pointed a claw in accusation. "These barbarians deserve death!"

Every man there howled in agreement, lifting clubs and torches. The women added their anxious voices, too, although they made no move to interfere. Felline bared her fangs in disgust. Whether at them or at the stench of lizard, she wasn't sure. All she knew was that this was bad.

Lion-O didn't budge, although his eyes betrayed his misgivings. "I'm not gonna let anyone lay a paw on them!" he said.

"_Move_, lizard lover!" the alley cat growled, swinging his club without hesitation, as if it wasn't the brains of his crown prince he was trying to splatter across the courtyard. Lion-O ducked the first swing, lost his balance for the second, and ended up on his backside for the third. "Or you'll wind up in those stocks yourself!" the cat finished, leering at the downed prince.

"_Yeah_!" the mob screamed at his back.

"No. Oh, no," Lepra was whimpering. Felline was too sickly fascinated by what was happening to attend to her. This was crazy. It made absolutely no sense. Why was the heir to Thundera's throne risking his life for lizards? No cat in his right mind would do that. It was a betrayal of everything they believed.

Just then, Prince Tygra entered the fray. Nonchalantly, he grabbed the mob leader by the shoulder and pushed. The stocky tom landed with an _oof_. Felline wrinkled her nose at the familiar odor that puffed off his clothes.

Tygra was grinning, but there wasn't an ounce of humor in his brown eyes. "You better be very sure you want to do this," he said to the crowd, standing next to his brother, "because _I've_ got his back."

Lion-O didn't look particularly grateful or relieved to have his grinning bigger brother at his side, but he didn't tell Tygra to go away, either.

The alley cat, who must have been three sheets to the wind, laughed deep in his throat and got to his feet. "All of us against you two?" he queried, testosterone leaking from every pore. Or maybe that was just alcohol.

And then _she_ came. For a split second, Felline thought Lepra had somehow jumped into the fight, but that couldn't be – her sister was tugging on her arm. Besides, the yellow woman standing in front of the stunned princes was a cheetah, not a leopard. She held out her paw, extending a magical staff. "Make that three," she said, orange eyes daring the alley cats to make the first move.

Felline couldn't hear what anyone said next, for with a smirk, Prince Tygra unhooked a three tailed whip from his belt and lashed the cobblestones in front of the mob. Sparks flew from the sharp, ruby red tips, and everyone jumped back, the sisters with them, but then someone off to their left shouted, "Let's teach 'em a lesson!"

The crowd gave a heave and then all was noise and confusion. Felline threw up her arms to shield her face, but it was too dark to see properly and she couldn't fend off all of the elbows, fists, and impromptu weapons whizzing about. She fell with a snarl of pain.

Something changed in Lepra's face then. Just as it had when they'd been growing up any time someone made Felline cry. She screamed a challenge at those threatening her sister and began laying into people with her claws, fighting simply to clear a space around them.

Tucking herself into a tight ball, Felline rolled free. She felt her dress catch and tear. Panicked, she called out for her sister, but all she could see were the royals taking out the alley cats with relative ease.

Prince Tygra's whip was apparently magical, too, for with a flicker of lightning, he used it to vanish and reappear on the other side of the fight. He planted his fist in a cat's face and sent him flying with a kitten's surprised mew.

"Try and catch me!" the cheetah woman shouted. In a blur of sun yellow, she dashed past her opponents with blinding speed and batted a whole circle of them flat with her staff. Her eyes were calculating in her lovely face, masked with pale orange, upswept markings, her hair a wild mane of spotted dandelion. Awed, Felline watched her, finally understanding the phrase "poetry in motion." Jealousy scrabbled at her insides, her sister for the moment forgotten.

Because this woman knew martial arts. Someone had thought _her_ worth training.

Prince Lion-O was closest to Felline. Fighting only with his fists, he was slower than the others. Still sore from the beating his brother had given him in the games, most likely, but he had been trained well. He managed to take down one alley stray and lifted another by his tunic, ready to knock him senseless, when a deep, resonant voice shot across the courtyard in snarling disapproval.

"_Lion-O_!"

Guiltily, everyone froze, became a picture perfect scene of "caught in the act." The tableau would have been comical if the situation hadn't been so awful.

Lion-O tossed his would-be victim aside, his expression stony. An overwhelming desire to run into her sister's arms stole over Felline, but even though she could see Lepra standing unharmed just a few feet away, she didn't dare move and draw attention to herself.

King Claudus strode into the moonlight, cloak fluttering, General Grune behind him, flanked by Commander Snow and another palace guard that Felline didn't know. "What is going _on_ here?" Claudus demanded in the universally irritated tones of fathers since time immemorial. "Protecting lizards?"

"No," Lion-O said with solemn intensity. He held out a paw, indicating the two slaves behind him. "I'm protecting _us_ from turning into the very coldblooded creatures we fear."

At that, the lizards raised their heads, tooth filled jaws falling open in something like dismay or disbelief.

"These lizards did nothing and should be released," Lion-O finished in a rush, fixing his blue eyes on his father's. The lizards' eyes nearly bugged out of their skulls.

Claudus's own eyes widened, and he threw back his head as if his son had slapped him. The torchlight revealed the scar across his broad, flat nose, the fur around it laying the wrong way. "_Release_ them? Don't be foolish. As Lord of the ThunderCats, it is my duty to keep our people safe, and one day it will be yours."

"You wanted me to start acting like a king," Lion-O countered quietly, frowning. "Well, this is it. And I don't think the only way to rule is with a sword. Maybe we'd have less trouble with the lizards if we weren't always oppressing them."

No one seemed to be breathing. What was he _saying_? In the stocks, the lizards were trembling, fear and hope etched into their alien faces.

Scowling, King Claudus closed his eyes. He nodded – a command.

Snow and the other guard moved forward, using their halberds to separate the two halves of the stocks. Under cover of the restlessly shifting (and in some cases, escaping) cats, Felline ghosted over to Lepra, hugging her around the waist as she used to hug her mother when she'd had a nightmare. Lepra's heart was beating too fast under her ear.

When the lizards uncertainly stood upright on their hind legs, Felline could see how big they actually were in spite of their shorter stature, their tails as long as they were tall, their heads and jaws large enough to bite a cat in half. Not that these lizards had done anything of the sort. They were emaciated and weak. Pathetic, even. They came stiffly forward, dressed only in leather short-pants, reaching for each other. Before they could reunite, however, Snow whacked the blue one with the butt of his halberd, and the other palace guard kicked at the green one and roughly said, "Get out of here."

The lizards did not need to be told twice. Dignity long since denied them, they ran.

His face dark as a thundercloud, Grune leaned forward and rumbled, "My Lord."

"Consider this an act of goodwill between the species," Claudus said imperiously, ignoring him. Then, still glowering, he walked up to his son and stared down at him. "Perhaps now you might show some goodwill of your own, and take your responsibilities as prince more seriously."

Back straight, Lion-O nodded, and Claudus walked away.

Snow, following his lord, noticed his daughters on the fringes of the erstwhile mob and started to say something. But then his eyes widened, fury making his whiskers bristle. Still reeling from the late hour and all that had just transpired, Felline bemusedly looked down. Lepra's left paw was on her shoulder, her ring in plain sight.

* * *

_**A/N: **Decision made! It won't come into play until next chapter, but it determined whether I show this scene from the episode or not._

_I've not written a full fanfic on a TV show before. It's a different experience, let me tell you. I've always liked the "two sides to every story" idea (have you ever written a scene like that, first from one character and then from the other? It's a lot of fun)._

_A note on the previous-previous chapter (I'm probably going to be doing this a lot, lmao): My newest reviewer Artemis zodiac had a most excellent point for me. The Tigris was an entirely inappropriate name for the river in Thundera - that was just my love of tigers showing through. Tigers ARE my favorite of the great cats. Anyway, the river has been renamed. It is now Rufus, "redheaded." Hey, if the lions are going to be egocentric, there's no sense in doing things halfway, right? XD_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Night Whisperer **(I'm so glad you like him! Yay!), **Heart of the Demons** (And ditto to you! Hahaha, I should have made Bastien my primary OC, but then I couldn't explore the romance I have planned. Oh, well), and **Artemis zodiac** (Wow, so much food for thought! Four reviews at once is nothing short of win. Ch 1: Yeah, I noticed there are a lot of snow leopard OCs, too. *sad sad* I started writing CC back in 2011 when the show first aired, but I never posted it because I was working on my FFXII fic and I'm way too scatterbrained to juggle two projects at once. I still have the original file up on Google Docs. I know I'm super late to the party. I personally chose snow leopard because 1. tiger was out of the question and 2. snow leopards are my SECOND favorite cats. SO FLUFFY! I apologize for not being the most original on the block, hehe. Ch. 2: I'm glad that came through okay! Ch. 3: Thank you thank you for catching that detail! Ch. 4: lol, thanks). To all of you, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU._

_Did anyone else notice the stats weren't working yesterday? For the longest time I thought no one was reading! O_o That made me sad. But reviews make me happy. ;)_

_I hope you're still with me! Things will start coming together in the next chapter. I think the "introduction" of the story is finally complete._

_Ever Yours,_

_Anne_


	6. As Much Chance as a Wax Cat in Hell, one

Felline thought the shouting would never end.

The night had passed badly for the sisters, waiting at home for a dawn that didn't seem to want to appear. When Commander Snow finally came home, bleary eyed and ragged after the night's duties and festivities, the first thing he did was summon his daughters.

And then he dismissed the servants for the day. All of them.

"I cannot express the shame you have brought me," he began. His voice was a growl, low and deadly. "You have defied everything I have done in bringing you here, taken all of my work and thrown it back in my face. While I was on the lookout for a good home for you, you have gone behind my back and formed this clandestine alliance. You have proven yourself a tramp in the eyes of Thundera –"

"Father, that's too much," Felline cried, stung on her sister's behalf. "Lep would never break honor like that –"

"_Silence_!" Snow snapped, and Felline choked back her words. "You have kept this secret for her! You have betrayed me. I have nothing to say to you."

It was incredible how much words could hurt. She stared at the floor, tears welling up in her eyes, wishing she could be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

"Whose is it, Lepra?" Snow's paws were fists at his sides, his blue eyes as cold and unforgiving as a glacier. "Who gave you that ring?"

Lepra's eyes were overly bright, but she kept her head up and spoke with the respect due to her father. "Rachan."

A flush worked its way up his face, mottled by his fur. Spitting a curse, he slapped Lepra hard enough to knock her off her feet. "Never!" he hissed.

Lepra didn't make a sound, but she didn't get up, either. It was the sight of her sister lying on the rug, long legs twisted in her skirt, face hidden by golden hair, claws flexing spasmodically, that did it. Felline snapped. She launched herself at her father, latching onto one muscled arm as he bent down to pull her sister to her feet.

There was a lot of incoherent screaming between them. Snow, so much stronger, grasped her by the nape of the neck, ripped her off, and flung her from him. She was so little that she flew across the room. When she came down, she crashed into the low table in front of the sofa. It didn't break, but the books and a figurine on top of it were swept off as she went sliding over it, scattering loose pages and glass shards across the hardwood floor. Groaning, Felline lay against the sofa, pain blossoming in her side.

When she sat up, Lepra was struggling with Snow. He had one slim wrist in his big paw while she pushed at him with her free paw, but it was no use. Eyes blazing, he wrenched the ring off her finger, possibly breaking the delicate bones in the process, judging by the high pitched mew that escaped her. Then he stomped into the kitchen, dragging Lepra along with him. While she cried and pleaded with him, he chucked the ring into the sink and turned on the faucet full force. The tiny ring vanished in seconds.

"You will not see that man again!" Snow yelled.

"You can't tell me what to do!" Lepra shrieked, beside herself.

"Shut up!" Snow hit her again. "Shut your mouth!"

"Stop it!" Felline screamed. She attacked her father from the side, small fists pounding. Easily, Snow swatted her aside and she collided with the pantry door.

"I'll leave," Lepra said through the blood in her mouth. Her amber eyes were wild and full of hatred. Her voice was so quiet that it was like a shout. "I'll run away. You can't stop me."

"Can't I?" Snow breathed.

Before Felline realized the danger she was in, Snow seized her arm in an iron grip. She yelped in pain as tendons ground against each other. Then, both women shouting through their tears, Snow hauled them down the hall and up the stairs to the second floor. He heaved Lepra through her bedroom door. Felline could hear something splinter and Lepra's gasp of pain before Snow slammed the door shut and locked it.

"Father – no –" That was all Felline managed to say. Snow picked her up and deposited her bodily in her own room. With a frame shuddering bang, he imprisoned her inside as well.

Lepra wasn't defeated yet. "This is why Mother left!" she screeched, hysterical. "I saw what you did to her that night! _I saw you_!"

"She was my wife! I wasn't about to allow that alley cat to touch _my wife_!"

"No husband would ever put his needs in front of his family's!"

"She only ever thought of herself!" Snow roared. "Not what I had done for her. I gave her everything she wanted!"

"Not love!" Lepra accused.

"Love?" Snow must have hit the wall. The entire house creaked in response, and a picture fell off Felline's wall hard enough to break the glass. "She never loved me. She lied to me!"

"She was only protecting herself, you monster!" By the sound of it, Lepra was trying to kick her own door out, her claws scraping against the grain.

At that, Snow started laughing. It was a horrible laugh, like something she imagined coming from a lizard, and Felline covered her ears with her arms, sobbing. "Yes, Lepra, only herself. I notice she didn't bother to take you with her. Think about that."

His heavy footsteps receded down the hall, down the stairs. Then the front door slammed.

The house rang with silence for a minute or two, and then the well of grief overflowed.

Lepra's ragged sobs stabbed at Felline, but it was a long time before she could control her own.

Was it true? Had their father really been such a monster? And what did that say about their mother? She'd left them, there was no denying that – but had she left them to live with another man? To start another family?

To replace the daughters that reminded her too much of her tormentor?

Panting, Felline lay on her floor and scrubbed her paws over her wet cheeks. Her side throbbed where she'd hit the table. She looked around, reacquainting herself with her belongings. She was safe here. Safe.

On the rug, something golden and shiny twinkled at her. Her earring. It had come out again.

_She was only protecting herself_, Lepra had said.

_Make a gift of them and then she couldn't be accused of throwing them away_.

A sob bubbled out of her throat. Felline plucked the other earring out and threw it as hard as she could, as if she could get rid of the dirty feelings threatening to smother her.

Why was she so blind? Lepra had been right about them, about all of it, while Felline had clung childishly to an idea. To a _lie_.

After a while, however, she calmed enough to get up. She tried her door, but it was still locked.

"Lep?" she called tremulously, nose to the crack. "Can you get out?"

Although she listened with both of her ears pricked forward, there was no answer.

"Lepra? Are you okay?"

"Leave me alone," Lepra said, her voice muted.

Three words, and they cut right to the heart. Felline backed away from the door as if it had burned her, tears prickling at her sinuses. "What did _I_ do?" she whispered, not caring if Lepra heard her or not.

Listless, Felline lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She was not hungry, although she drank some of the water in her ewer as the summer sun filled her room with syrupy heat. The house was quiet, strangely empty.

Her thoughts wandered in irregular circles. From Bastien to the kiss on her cheek, from the games to the princes, from Lion-O to her father. How backward, she thought darkly, for the prince to look at a lizard and see a victim, while her father could abuse her and her sister so right here in Thundera. Being a cat apparently meant much less to the prince than being a reptile.

She wondered if Snow would let her see Bastien again, or if he meant to keep her locked up in here forever.

Felline rolled onto her side, half asleep. She listened to the nothing in the house, but then she heard the brush of wood on wood.

Lepra had opened the window.

She may have been able to move in complete silence, but even she couldn't hide the squeak of shutter hinges from Felline's sensitive ears.

Swinging her feet to the floor, Felline stared at her door as if expecting it to open. But of course it didn't, and now all she could hear was the breeze in the trees outside.

It didn't take a genius to guess where Lepra had gone. Second story or not, she was headed for the stables and the warm, pungent comfort of Lightning's sandy stall.

Well, fine. If that was how her sister wanted to be, then _fine_. _She_ hadn't done anything to deserve this.

Felline washed her face and changed her dress. She sat at her vanity, brushing her hair, scowling at herself in the mirror. How long would it be before her father came back home? What would the servants think when they came to work tomorrow to find the mess downstairs, Felline locked in her room, and Lepra sleeping with the horses? Did he care?

So lost in her thoughts, it was some time before she became aware of a new noise. The first time it happened, she wasn't sure she'd actually heard it. Her brush stilled, one ear canted toward the window.

It happened again. _Clink_.

She crept to the window. _Clink_. _Clink_. Stared down through the glass.

"Bastien?" Cautiously, she opened the sash and leaned out. It really was him, standing in the street below, dropping a handful of pebbles into the bushes. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey," Bastien called in a half whisper as soon as he saw her, flashing a white grin. "I wanted to see you."

"You don't have to be quiet, no one's here," she said.

"Yeah, about that." He scrubbed a paw through his sooty hair, gray eyes apologetic. "Rumor has it you're under house arrest. I came to break you out."

Felline deliberated for perhaps two seconds. If she went with Bastien, she'd be abandoning Lepra, but Lepra had already chosen her horse over her sister. If Snow came home and found both daughters missing, things would get a little unpleasant around the house, but Bastien had come all the way here for her, without being asked. That meant he liked her, right?

"Don't you want to go on a date with me?" He grinned.

Did he really have to ask?

"I'll be right down," she said. Heart pounding, she gathered up her skirt and levered herself out of the window. Toes and fingers rigid, she swung her way down the side of the house, claws digging into the soft white stucco façade. She'd never done anything like this before – this must have been how Lepra and Rachan used to meet. There was something thrilling about going behind her family's back. Giggling as she disentangled herself from the bushes at the base of the house, she trotted into the street and took Bastien's outstretched paw.

* * *

_**A/N: **Well, now. __O_o _

_Reviewer Thanks! **Heart of the Demons **(Your encouragement means worlds to me. Thank you! Although, I feel like I can't take credit yet for keeping the cast in character, since I haven't made them do anything original yet, LOL), **Artemis zodiac** (Hmm, that is a very good suggestion. I certainly do NOT want to bore a fan of this series who already knows what happens, so to speak. I will work on integrating my OCs further as the story progresses . . . but I'm not sure that scene was the place to do it. As of right now, Felline and Lepra aren't of Lion-O's thinking - they could easily have been PART of the mob; and to Lion-O, they were. I doubt he even distinguished either of them in that mess! But, yeah, that's me musing out loud. I'll tread carefully. :3 Oh, and yes, the ThunderKittens will appear! I have no intention of deviating from canon in that way. I'm so grateful for your critique!), and **Night Whisperer** (Your wish shall be granted! One of them, anyway. :X I really appreciate your encouragement as well!). Once again, with feeling, THANK YOU ALL! *distributes cookies*_

_Yeah, heavy chapter. That wasn't my original intention, but I think (hope desperately) that it will all come together in the next couple of chapters. I guess we'll see, heh._

_Anne_


	7. Wax Cat in Hell, part two

"Prince Lion-O doesn't take his position as heir to the crown seriously," Bastien said. His curiosity knew no bounds; once he found out she'd witnessed the scene the night before, he'd peppered her with a thousand questions. However, he finished by saying he was hungry, and moved on to politics. "Pardoning those lizards is just another example of that."

Felline accepted the skewer of meat he handed her, fresh off the stall. "You're a palace guard. Are you sure you should be talking like that?" she asked, askance.

"I'm not on duty," he replied cheerfully, and bit into his skewer. "Besides, everyone thinks Prince Tygra should be king."

Thoughtfully, Felline took a bite of spiced meat. She'd heard that before, of course. Who hadn't? It was rumored that Claudus favored his elder son, but the Sword of Omens would pass to Lion-O due to his direct bloodline. Still, the clear eyed boy she'd seen last night had stood up to his father and king. His beliefs were what would lead the cats in the future. At least he'd seemed willing to fight for them, even if they were wrong.

"I wonder if Prince Tygra agreed with defending the lizards, or if he was simply there to defend his brother," she mused. And who had that woman been? She'd asked Bastien about her, but he didn't know.

"No cat in his right mind would defend one of those barbarians," Bastien said flatly.

"No," she agreed softly. But that made her wonder. It made her wonder very much.

"Come on," Bastien said once they'd finished eating. "Let's go make a wish."

After throwing away the empty skewers, he took her paw, smiling down at her. She liked the feel of his fingers, long and strong and entwined with hers, black against white. He kept glancing at her as they walked through the crowds, smiling when she caught him at it.

Talking more than attending to their surroundings, Felline and Bastien strolled to the square and the big white fountain. The hour was late, and most cats had redirected their steps for home. In the west, the setting sun packed away the blue from the sky, replacing it with fiery pinks and oranges. The moon Leo was purple and white, its two mismatched eyes like bruises on its swirled face, its sister Cheshire nearly hidden by clouds. No one else was making wishes when more important things like supper or beds were calling. It may as well have been the two of them alone in all of Thundera.

"Ready?" Bastien held a coin on his thumb, the tip of which he'd tucked under his first finger.

Not to be outdone, Felline pulled a coin from her purse. It was the silver ten she'd stolen last week. She ran her thumb lightly over the prince's profile, and then put it back. Not that one. It already held someone's wish. A copper penny would do just as well.

She looked up at the flat disc of Leo, holding the coin toward the burbling fountain.

_I wish_, she thought, and was startled and ashamed of the desire that popped into her head. What she'd like to wish for had to do with the palace guard with the nice face standing right next to her. What she thought of was, _I wish I never have to go home again_.

"Go!" Bastien said. With a small smile, he flipped his coin into the water.

It was reflexive; at the word, Felline tossed her coin in, as well. She watched it sink with a hard, guilty knot behind her breastbone.

"What did you wish for?" Bastien's voice was low, velvety.

"Oh –" With a shaky laugh, Felline tucked her purse back in her sash. "If I tell you, it won't come true."

"I don't mind telling you mine."

She peeked up at him through her lashes. His pale gray eyes were intense, and he'd turned so that they were no longer side by side, but facing each other. Pressure built up inside her for an entirely different reason.

"Or, maybe I should just show you," he said quietly. He lifted his free paw, slowly, and traced one of the black lines down her face, pausing at the corner of her mouth. "I do want it to come true, after all."

Who knew a kiss could be so scary? Not sure what she should do, Felline closed her eyes and held as still as possible as Bastien bent down and put his lips to hers.

Oh. That was nice. He pulled back slightly, checking for her reaction. When she leaned closer, he flashed a grin and then kissed her again. More than just a press of lips this time. He brushed back her hair, gently flattened one of her ears. Felline was just getting into it when the most gods awful noise blasted from the direction of the plains.

They both jumped, her tail puffing up to twice its size, his arms suddenly constricting, pinning her to him.

"Bastien," she squeaked, face flaming. The horn blew again, urgent, demanding. All of her claws had extended in response.

"Sorry." He put her down, his expression a mix of regret and fear. "That's the Keep horn. General Lynx-O's on duty tonight. Something bad must be coming."

The Keep was situated a couple miles outside the city, as tall as the blue stone head of Cat's Lair. The only reason it would communicate like that was – "An invasion?" she asked against the continuing bass growl of the horn.

He nodded, his eyes grim. "I'd better get to the palace. Now."

Getting there was easier said than done. Thunderians flocked out of their homes in response to the city horns taking up the cry, multiplying the cacophony until Felline's head rang. Parents carried cubs too small to walk, older children clutched toys and siblings. Quite a few cats were calling out to each other, asking the same questions over and over: What was happening? Was it the lizard army? Would they breach the gates? It was loud and disorienting on the city streets, shadowed as they were with nightfall. Felline clung to Bastien's paw so hard she must have been hurting him, but he never complained.

"There's a shelter just up here," he shouted down at her. "I want you to go there and wait for me."

"Okay," Felline said. Then she balked. "Wait! What about my sister?"

"You'll never make it back to your house in all of this," he pointed out. Just then, someone rammed into him from behind, and he tucked her protectively to his side. A cub began to wail, the frightened squalling picked up by others nearby. "There's a shelter in your neighborhood, right? The guard on patrol will make sure she gets there."

Felline knew he was right, but she couldn't shake her anxiety. She should be home with Lepra right now, not out here without her.

Distant shudders, bangs, and booms told them all that the invaders were trying to bring down Thundera's great white wall. Not only that, but they must have brought siege engines with catapults. Felline shrieked as a flaming ball crashed through a whole block of buildings a few streets over and a wave of heat made her fur curl. Methodically, more fireballs slammed down, getting closer and closer, like a giant foot stamping out an anthill. Gouts of debris shot upward like the water in the fountain, raining bricks and fire onto fleeing cats. Some went down, knocked flat and bleeding.

Adults had begun giving in to fear, adding their caterwauls to those of their children. The crowd picked up speed, sweeping Felline and Bastien along.

"Here," Bastien said, handing her over to the palace guard directing traffic with his hand torch. Swiftly, he kissed her on the lips. "I'll be back."

"Good luck," she said, not knowing what else she could say. Somewhere out there, her father was already fighting, of that she was sure.

Bastien's gray eyes lingered on her face, and then he was gone.

"Hurry! To the underground shelter!" a pike bearing guard shouted, waving his torch.

Night had fallen. Apparently, there hadn't been time to light all of the street lamps. The single brazier above the guard didn't give enough illumination and Felline missed the first step. She tumbled down five before she could arrest her momentum, scraping her knee and her elbow. Her fellow Thunderians paid her no heed, rushing by in a black tide full of shining, fear filled eyes. Painfully, she pulled herself upright by the wall.

There was no warning. She moved to follow her neighbors, and a trio of fireballs descended like earthbound comets. The steps exploded outward, sending Felline flying into darkness.

* * *

_**A/N: **The Fall of Thundera has begun. TT_TT_

_On a funnier note, when Bastien started throwing rocks at Felline's window last chapter, I wondered how he knew which room was hers. I think some questions are better left unanswered. :3_

_Also regarding last chapter - I had the timing of the attack wrong. I thought it was already full night when it began, but it was sunset when Lynx-O ordered the alarm. Which means Felline had even less time than I originally wrote; it has now been fixed, and the ending to last chapter expanded just a smidge. That's why this chapter opens where it does._

_Reviewer Thanks! **Heart of the Demons **(Thank you. I was so worried the chapter wouldn't be well received . . . I mean, it covers some territory that the series doesn't, which I really didn't plan!), **Night Whisperer** (Oh, yay! That's a fantastic reaction! Thanks!), **Artemis zodiac** (Hey, yeah, he kind of is! I hadn't thought of that, hee. Shame on me. ;3), and **WAR-Operative** (Welcome! Thanks for the kind words, and for the critique. ;) As for your problem, I have had the exact same thought and misgivings. I guess my desire to explore Thundera from outside the palace is what led to six chapters before diving into the main plot of the show. Seven now. I've just closed my eyes and jumped in, hoping to stay afloat! Anyway, I totally get where you're coming from, and I do appreciate your taking the time to tell me. It's something to work on!). Thank you all so much! *hugs*_

_NaNoWriMo is in full swing, and I'm taking advantage of it to keep trucking along on CC. Is anyone else participating this year? I hope you're having a good week. Won't you please leave a review?_

_All my love,_

_Anne_

_P.S. I keep forgetting to acknowledge those of you who have favorited CC! Thank you SO MUCH. Nothing is more flattering than a fave!_


	8. Wax Cat in Hell, part three

Felline came to surrounded by fire.

Dizzily, she opened her eyes to rubble. She was lying face down on the ground, a puddle of syrupy, dark red blood quickly spreading. She watched in disoriented fascination as it poured out of a gash above her left eye. What looked like cupful after cupful just kept coming, drooling onto the cracked pavement, sparkling like liquid garnet.

"Oh, good, you're alive," a voice said above her. She looked up to see an unfamiliar tom, his ears poking through his hood, his fur bloodied and singed. He offered her a handkerchief, helping her press it to her forehead as he levered her upright. Everything hurt. Woozy, she swayed on her feet.

"Hang in there, take it slow. It's gonna swell up something awful, but you were lucky," the tom said, grabbing her before she collapsed. He swallowed thickly. "Luck was not with them."

All around, individual fires spread to become one big inferno, rising in a flickering curtain, great tangerine chunks of it blowing off in the wind. The ground bucked beneath them, quaking under the lizards' assault. Felline blinked against the glare, unable to pinpoint what felt so _wrong_ to her about the fire. And then it hit her.

Stone doesn't burn.

The tom supporting her must have seen the horrified realization in her face, for he tried to soothe her: "Don't look now, there's nothing to see. It's okay, they never knew – _Hey, I've got one_!" he yelled suddenly, waving his arm.

She couldn't hear the response over the crackling of the flames and the continued barrage from beyond the wall, but she and the unnamed tom made their way through the destruction to a group of four other cats. A skinny tabby seemed to have taken charge.

"You can have this," she said brusquely, shoving a hooded cloak meant for someone much bigger at Felline.

Wordless, Felline took it and put it on, sticking her ears through the holes by feel, securing it under her chin. It covered up the worst of the damage to her dress, although she couldn't seem to stop shivering despite the warm summer night and the blazing fire. Her teeth were chattering.

"We'll head up to the palace," the tabby was saying. Her face had been laid open from temple to jaw, and her fur glistened darkly. She also seemed to be favoring her right arm.

But she was worlds better off than the poor alley cat hefted between the last two. His legs ended quite abruptly before the knee, and he, mercifully, was unconscious. It was quite possible he wouldn't wake up ever again.

Banding together, the shaken cats made to follow the lanky tabby. Except for Felline.

"I have to go home," she said, eyes on the unconscious cat.

"We're going to the palace," the tabby corrected, backlit by the firelight. It made a ginger halo around her head. "We'll be safe there."

"I have to get my sister," Felline said.

"If she was in that, then I'm afraid she's gone." The tabby gestured at what used to be the shelter entrance and then heaved a sigh. "There's no time to think about it now. We have to get moving."

"She's at home," Felline said, backing up a step, and then two. Dimly, she realized she was in shock, but she couldn't change what she was saying or doing even if she wanted to. "I have to go get her."

"Stop talking nonsense and come with me!" the tabby snarled, patience gone. Fresh blood leaked down her neck as she made a grab at Felline.

Weirdly, it wasn't the tabby reaching for her. It was Snow.

Felline hissed and struck, tearing four claw marks in striped fur. She sprang away as the tabby gave a cat's scream of pain, and then she was running, tail and cloak streaming out behind her.

_Lepra_.

She hadn't gotten far when the reality of danger set in. There was no telling where the fireballs were going to land. If she stayed still, she might get hit. If she kept moving, she might get hit. If she turned left – _now_ – she could be running right into one, or away into safety. There was no hope, none, so she shoved the fear as deep as it would go and kept her legs moving, adrenaline zinging through her so hard and fast she never felt the cuts on her feet as she skidded across the deathscape that had once been the shopping district.

She pelted into moonlight in the palace courtyard, a perversely serene place in the midst of so much chaos. Like the giant spider it reminded her of, General Grune's crystal studded rock crouched in the center, its yellow "eyes" watching and waiting.

It wasn't until Felline reached the other side of the courtyard that she heard the scrape of stone on stone and then a loud bang.

Heart clawing its way up her throat, she whirled around.

A second yellow crystal, wide as a door and twice as thick, extruded from the rock and landed with a metallic thud. A third, a fourth, too many, too fast. When the first lizard popped out one of the new holes, tail flailing for balance, Felline nearly cried out.

Instead, she scrambled for the shadows and glued herself to a wall.

She couldn't see them anymore, but she could hear them: Dry, scaly feet shuffling against the cobblestones, their hissing, rasping breaths.

And then one spoke in a sibilant accent. "It was getting a bit rank in there, General Slithe."

"A night in that rock is _nothing_ compared to how long I have waited to set foot inside the cat's impenetrable castle," another lizard answered, his voice grotesquely liquescent.

They said nothing more, but a high pitched whine pierced Felline's sensitive ears. It didn't sound like a lizard, but also didn't sound like anything she'd heard before. Certainly nothing _alive_ could make that sound. More and more lizards cascaded out of the rock, and, to her horror, were coming closer. She bolted.

Lizards weren't cats. They couldn't move as soundlessly as she could. Felline raced along the city streets, staying just ahead of the army and freed lizard slaves and the strange explosions that advanced with them. They may have infiltrated the city, but she knew its avenues and streets better than they did.

The Thunderian army was no doubt trying to hold the wall, Bastien and her father with them. How could they have known about the rock's true purpose? And what did it matter that Felline knew? There was no one to tell. Everywhere she ran, she saw cats being shot down in the street. The lizards carried strange weapons that spat cold green fire. Defenseless Thunderians didn't stand a chance.

If she could get home, she wouldn't be defenseless. If she could get to Lepra, then she and her sister could aid their people with their bows. _Let's see a lizard fight with an arrow in his jugular_, she thought fiercely. Hunting lizards couldn't be much harder than hunting a chib-chib. Or so she told herself. And never mind that her aim left a lot to be desired. It would be _something_, infinitely better than lying down to die.

Felline made it to her street, and wanted to weep with relief. She could see her house up ahead, and darted out from the shadows to cover ground more quickly. However, the night wasn't done with its earth shattering revelations. Something literally ripped the sky in two, leaving a long smoking trail across the stars, its howl deafening her. Faster than she could see, it struck the city with the largest explosion yet, sending a plume of orange-black curling for the moons. More of the mechanical beasts screamed by overhead. Incredibly, impossibly, they burrowed into Cat's Lair and severed the great blue cat head from its shoulders.

The man who had saved her. The tabby. That poor alley cat . . . Had they made it?

The headless corpse of the broken palace sent new waves of fear surging through her. What could stand against such power? Surely not a simple bow and arrow.

Shaking off her fright, Felline aimed straight for the stables, but she never made it there. She ran smack into a group of rifle toting lizards arguing over the horses. They'd managed to saddle them, and a potbellied reptile with red lensed goggles was yanking on Blue Beauty's reins from astride her, but Lightning, topaz eyes rolling, reared up on his hind legs, lashing out with his forelegs. He gutted one of his captors before they dragged him back down.

A lizard pressed the muzzle of his weapon against Lightning's temple. "If it can't be ridden, then it's horsemeat," he rasped.

"No!" Not slowing, Felline barreled into him, but he was bigger than she. She bounced right off him. A wiry, scaled arm lashed out and captured her.

"Another slave for the mines," he hissed, and then licked the bloody side of her face. The other lizards erupted in laughter.

"She'll make up for that other one nicely," another commented. "Hurry up with those horses."

Blue Beauty was led away, her furred tail tucked between her legs. The lizard holding Felline swung her around, barking out orders. Hanging from the waist, her paws pinned to the strangely hot scales of her captor, she had an excellent view of the ground.

And of her sister lying in the grass.

Lepra was dead. There was no denying it. The only movement she betrayed originated in the fiery, dusty wind teasing her golden hair. She wasn't breathing. She wasn't even bleeding anymore.

Felline's eyes stung as the truth sank in. Lepra had tried to defend the horses, that much was clear. But did they really have to do that to her? She'd been stabbed and sliced from behind so many times that her beautiful rosettes were indistinguishable from her blood. And they weren't superficial wounds, either. The lizards had butchered her sister like so much horsemeat, revealing muscle and bone.

No wonder Lightning was fighting. The smell must have been driving him crazy. He struggled to get to his mistress, either not understanding or not caring that she was gone. Felline wanted to throw up, or pass out, or even die, rather than see Lepra like that. The sobs tore out of her from her very core, wordless and anguished, and she keened like one of the dying.

"Here, what's all this?" the lizard holding her blustered, shaking her in disgust, as if that would stop her tears.

"Never mind, there's the signal," someone else rasped. From above, what looked like a mini sun washed out the scene in sickly, bile colored light. "There's none but the king left."

She didn't think. She didn't hesitate. Felline twisted her upper body and sank her fangs into her captor's rounded shoulder.

Lizard blood was truly the foulest thing she'd ever tasted, but it didn't matter. With a squeal that would have made a newborn kit proud, he flung her from him. Felline hit the ground hard, but she spat out a mouthful of lizard meat and drew enough breath to whistle shrilly.

Lightning reared again, screaming. He bucked, kicked, and bit himself loose, and then galloped wildly for the street. Felline launched herself at his saddle as he passed. Clinging to the rein collar around his neck, she rode her sister's stampeding horse into the burning city, knocking surprised lizards aside as they went.

"After her!" a lizard cried, but they weren't going to catch Lightning at a dead run while on foot. She wasn't even directing him; she gave the stallion his head and trusted him to get them out of there alive in spite of the cold green bolts of the lizard's alien sorcery blasting apart masonry all around them.

_I'm sorry_. Sobbing, she buried her face in his stiff mane. Lepra. Blue Beauty. She'd abandoned them both. Bastien. Father. Were they dead?

_I'm so sorry._

* * *

_**A/N: **Happy Friday, Dear Readers!_

_What does a life or death situation bring out in us? Is it good, or is it bad? Hard to say._

_I thought the tiny scene with Kit and Kat running out of the underground shelter opened up some great possibilities, but that it wasn't explored at all. So I expanded on it (I was also reading something about bombings and watching hockey where things can get a little bloody. Writers are so impressionable, lol). I wasn't able to bring in the warmechs from Felline's POV - I felt like too much was happening already - the chapter is almost two thousand words! *dies* Still, the night isn't over for her quite yet (but almost)._

_Reviewer Thanks! **Heart of the Demons **(Hee, YAY! Thank you so much!), **Artemis zodiac** (Was the story really boring? lol I'll try to keep things moving from now on), **Night Whisperer** (Aw, she just didn't know how to behave on a date. Or something. LOL! I'm looking forward to introducing them . . . I wanted to create someone for him, rather than make him fit to someone new. I have no idea yet if I've succeeded, but she does still have room to become more herself. Wait, did that make sense? heh), and **Seeds of Destruction** (Welcome! I'm so happy you reviewed!). To all of you, my most heartfelt thanks. I don't think I could keep this up without either the encouragement or the pokes in the right direction. Thank you!_

_Humbly,_

_Anne_


	9. Alley Cat, part one

The slums were eerily silent.

Up above, Felline could hear the lizard army raiding homes and shelters, the screams that ended in gunfire. Strange mechanical creatures as tall as houses that walked on two legs trundled through the burning city, herding up any who tried to escape.

The king would never have allowed the sacking of Thundera, which could only mean that he was dead. Most likely the princes were, too. Even the legendary wizard Lord Jaga and his clerics had apparently been no match for the fairy tale – or, as Lepra had put it – the evil that was technology.

That was it, then. In just a couple of hours, the Thunderian empire had been brought to its knees, its people slaughtered and enslaved, its magnificent city razed to the ground. Where had the lizards gathered such phenomenal power?

The night lay like syrup in the alleys. Felline had no doubt that the lizards would return to the slums later after looting the richer sections of Thundera. As for what had happened to all of the residents in the slums, who could say?

Lightning stepped carefully through the debris, his ears swiveling, alert for any danger. He seemed to have taken Felline as his personal responsibility. Perhaps it was because he could smell Lepra on her, or maybe he could smell her grief, and understood in some animalistic way that it was the same as his. She lay limply on his back, feeling like a wrung out dishcloth, and let him go where he wished.

However, the stallion stopped, tail swishing, and gave a questioning huff.

"What are you doing here?" a low, gruff voice asked.

Felline raised her head. Out of the shadows, a figure emerged.

"That's a nice mount you have," he said, turning dark, mournful eyes on her. "A kitten, are you? I didn't expect to see any cats left. You're a lucky one. Or else a smart one."

Felline laid her ears back. The person talking to her was a _dog_. What was an old hound like this one doing here in the slums, alone?

"Come on," he said in his gruff whisper. "It's time we got out of here."

Without waiting for her assent, he reached up and took hold of Lightning's collar, feeling his way forward with a walking staff.

"I was just gathering a few things," he went on, leading the weary, quiescent horse up a steep path cut in the cliff face. "I couldn't stand the thought of those lizards taking everything I have. I'll be closing up shop and heading back to the City of Dogs. You and your mount are welcome to come with me if you want. I have no grudge against cats."

Felline didn't say anything. There were no words inside of her anymore.

Lepra was dead.

Felline had seen what was left of Thundera's great white wall. As if they were of one mind, Lightning had tried to take her that way, but the reptilian army encamped on the plains blocked their way to freedom. He had shied from the piles of bodies still clothed in palace guard tunics and helms, the scattered, shattered halberds and bows.

Bastien and her father were somewhere in that mess. Her family. The man she'd kissed. They'd left her, every single one of them. What did it matter if this slum dog now wanted to adopt an alley cat? She was as homeless as any pickpocket. It wasn't like she had anything of value, except her purse, holding a few Thunderian coins. Maybe her horse – which wasn't even her horse. Her _sister's_ horse. There hadn't been time to take anything else; she had no food, no change of clothes, no bow or arrows.

It was these absences that defined her now. And like a reflection in a mirror, her words had died, turned to ash, and blown away.

Hefting his pack higher on his shoulders, the dog carefully led Lightning beneath a tatty awning and into a crummy little shop, carved into the cliff like an afterthought. He shut and locked the door behind them by feel before lighting a single lantern. Shadows leapt up and clawed for the low ceiling, mingling in the corners.

"We're a bit out of the way up here," he muttered, setting the lantern down, "but they won't leave us alone for long. That lock should give us a few more minutes."

Even though Lightning and his rider filled up more than half the available space in the windowless shop, the dog puttered around in total unconcern, filling boxes and packs with what looked like old, broken, and rusted junk. The dog himself was thin but wiry, his old paws working deftly with coils of wire and tools she had no name for. Felline watched him dispassionately. He wore a strange bit of headgear, a loose square of cloth draped over his head that was cinched across his forehead with a flat bar of metal. Was that a dog fashion or something he'd put together himself? She suspected the latter; some of the trash he was wrapping so tenderly in canvas made her wonder if he was some kind of loony. His black nose glistened above a bushy moustache, his shaggy russet ears hanging over his shoulders like hair.

"That should do it," he said at last. Then he sniffed in her direction, apologetically. "You might have to walk from here."

It made no difference to her. Felline swung her legs over and let herself down. It was a long way. There'd been a reason Father had given Lightning to Lepra, and reserved the shorter mare for his younger daughter.

Meanwhile, the dog had heaved aside a set of metal shelving and was running his claws lightly over the crude stone wall behind it. Coming up behind him, Felline made a face. The shop was like a cave. Was this really how people did business in the slums? And she'd thought Foret was poor.

A growl of stone in motion, and a section of the wall rolled ponderously out of the way. A tunnel. Probably leading outside Thundera. Not a surprise. This was a dog, after all, and a merchant. They were known to be crafty and untrustworthy.

Still muttering to himself, the dog hooked the lantern on the tunnel wall and began loading his boxes and packs onto a handcart. He didn't seem to care that Felline wasn't helping, so she didn't offer to.

"Let's go, then, my young friend," he said at last. After throwing a cloak around his shoulders, he attached the lantern to the top of the pile with a bit of string. He picked up the cart's handles and dragged it along behind him, the lantern bouncing against a canvas tarpaulin.

Felline went with him, leading Lightning, who lowered his head and followed with a nervous curl of his tail.

Behind them, the stone door rolled heavily back in place, shutting her out of Thundera forever.

..::~*~::..

The dog introduced himself as Jorma. He'd taken to calling her Fluffy, because even after a few days, she wouldn't speak. It was a dog's name, a pet name, and it should have offended her. It didn't really.

He liked to hear himself talk. Felline wondered if he was the kind of lonely that manifested in talking to oneself, or if the habit came from being a foreigner ensconced in a strange culture.

She learned what all of his junk was, too: Technology. He was fascinated by the stuff. And, apparently, so was Prince Lion-O. According to Jorma, they were old friends.

"Surprisingly open minded for a cat," he said fondly that first bleak day. "He was always a good customer."

By then, they'd rigged the cart to Lightning's saddle, and the stallion, unhappy but obedient, pulled the cart with Jorma's livelihood and their supplies. Holding the hood of the too big cloak closed, Felline turned slightly as she walked, looking back the way they had come, but Thundera was lost to the purple haze of the mountains.

There was nothing left back there. Even the fires had died out, their stench finally fading in the wind. The lizards had not wanted Thundera; they had wanted to blot it off the face of Third Earth.

They'd succeeded.

Without a word, she turned front again, trailing along behind the old hound, the dust of the King's Road turning her white fur tan.

Prince Lion-O's love of technology had not saved anyone.

..::~*~::..

"Can you hunt, Fluffy?" Jorma asked her while they struck camp. He was erecting the tiny one person shelters he called "pup tents."

Busy building the fire pit, she nodded absently, but then jerked in dismay as his meaning penetrated her thoughts, her armful of rocks tumbling to the ground.

She'd never hunted alone before. Sure, living in a small town like Foret had given them ample opportunity to go camping and hiking in the woods nearby, so living off the land wasn't exactly a new idea to her. But Lepra had always hunted with her.

She winced. Thinking of Lepra sharpened an already constant pain, one that kept her cloak, doing double duty as a pillow, wet at night. And she didn't have a bow or arrows. Neither did Jorma, from the glimpses she'd caught of his technological trash. She spread her paws, asking the question she no longer had words for.

"Ah, yes, I see the problem." Jorma never seemed fazed by much. He was a slow, deliberate old hound, one who talked to the voices in his head as often as to her. Breaking into one of his containers, he withdrew something big and the blue of steel.

His mournful eyes sized her up beneath her borrowed cloak. "Hmm. Might be a bit heavy for you. Give it a try, anyway."

And he handed her the big blue thing.

It _was_ heavy. And ugly. She held it across her paws, wondering what on Third Earth it could be.

"No, no, like this," Jorma said, correcting her grip. He put the hollow end of the thing in her left palm, and moved her right paw to a grip of sorts that jutted out the bottom. "You'll want to put your finger through here. Now, hold it up."

She did, much as she might lift a particularly fat snake. One that might bite her.

Jorma sighed, and scratched behind his ear. "I put that together myself, you know. It's perfectly safe."

She doubted that, and didn't protest when he relieved her of it. He demonstrated the correct hold. Tilting it so she could see, he showed her what he called the trigger. "Now, look through here," he said, kneeling next to her. "This is your sights. When you have the piece here near the top of the rifle centered between the two at the end of the barrel, you'll hit what you're aiming for."

The hound stood back, smiling beneath his bushy moustache, and lifted the weapon, elbows out. One eye closed, he squinted through the sights and squeezed the trigger.

The rifle, or whatever it was, spat a bolt of familiar cold green fire.

She nearly screamed in shock as a tree at the side of the road shuddered, but her throat closed up before she could make a sound. A small flame flared up on the tree's bark and then died, leaving behind a smoking black hole.

"Well!" Jorma said, pleased. "That was more impressive than I expected, but you get the idea."

And he turned to give the gun to her again.

She hissed at him, tail lashing. That wasn't sorcery! It was _technology_. Forbidden. Taboo. _Evil_.

"Oh, come now." Jorma put a paw on his hip and gave a low _woof_. "Don't tell me you're still caught up on all those old ideas. This is _progress_, Fluffy. Think about it. I'm too old to chase my dinner, but if we can bring fresh meat to the market, we may be able to get you a change of clothes as well as some new supplies."

He did have a point. She eyed him, warning him not to try anything funny with a flick of her tail. Slowly, she approached. Reached out. Accepted the heavy weapon.

Losing her in five seconds, he showed her the energy pack, the color coded charge readout, the safety, and a lot of other features that sounded like a whole bunch of jabberwocky.

But that was all right. She examined the rifle – he explained that the word had to do with markings inside the barrel that in turn had something to do with the accuracy of the shots – and, for the first time since the attack on Thundera began, a smile curved up the corners of her lips.

Green energy bolts flashed around their campsite well into the night. She found the rifle infinitely easier to aim than her bow, and quicker to fire, but by morning, her arms were stiff and shaky from the unaccustomed weight. Each night, she practiced shooting trees, and then the leaves hanging from them, and finally the skirlls and birds hiding in them, and was so exhausted by the time she crawled into her pup tent that she didn't dream.

And that in itself made her efforts worthwhile.

* * *

_**A/N: **Hello, my friends. I hope you have all had a wonderful weekend. :)_

_I was very interested in the logistics of "Omens Part II." Lion-O and the others were able to roam around the city, find Claudus, and leave by the front gate (not to mention Wilykit playing her flupe in broad daylight). The army was gone. This just blows my mind, lol. (Especially since in "Song of the Petalars," Slithe and his lizards were on the cats' trail. Why the heck didn't they just stick around Thundera and nab them when they built the funeral pyre?! But that's another story . . .) We know that Jorma got out, so I decided to team him up with Felline for a little while. The Felline/ThunderCats convergence is very near on the horizon! At last!_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Darwin **(I know I said this already, but I am SO HAPPY you decided to come visit! If there's anything that's unclear about the story, please let me know and I'll shoot you a quick PM. Since this is my third fandom, I'm hoping I'm getting the hang of revealing plot that isn't my own), **Night Whisperer** (I wondered if you had guessed what I was about to do, and I also wondered how you'd feel about it. Thank you for liking Lepra that much!), **Heart of the Demons** (Aw, Felline needed some love after all that - thanks! ;3), **Seeds of Destruction** (I'm thrilled you liked it, thanks!), and **Artemis zodiac** (Hah! Yeah! I know EXACTLY what you mean! Thanks, that's a pretty cool analogy. By the way, I would love to check out your new short, but I'm kinda tired tonight so I'll save it for tomorrow - look for me!). As always, you have my most heartfelt thanks and love._

_Ever Yours,_

_Anne_


	10. Alley Cat, part two

Dubious, she held up her new shirt. It wasn't part of a cat's wardrobe, that was for sure. The cut was unfamiliar, but the dark, wine red material was pretty enough. Jorma hadn't done too badly choosing an outfit for a young woman.

She didn't know for what kind of animal the clothes had been tailored. A dog or a rabbit, perhaps. She and Jorma had left the King's Road a few days ago, and the towns in this direction had little to do with cats. To make it easier for them to get rooms at the roadside in, she'd tucked her ears into her hood, closed the cloak, and kept her face in shadow. Still, the clothes seemed like they would fit a cat as short as she was. With a sigh, she shucked her ruined dress and drew herself a bath.

It took several rinses to restore her fur to its natural snowy white, and reveal the black rosettes along her calves, thighs, shoulders, and back. She gently probed the gash above her left eye, well on its way to healing into a small, puckered scar. A parting gift of Thundera, to take with her always.

Clean, she toweled dry, smoothing her fluffy tail. Fluffy. She smiled to herself, a quiet gratitude to the old hound warm in her chest. He was like somebody's grandfather, kind and forgiving. After generations of oppression by the cats from their powerful seat in the middle of the best resources and most fertile lands, the lesser animals of Third Earth were already fighting over the scraps left by their extermination. If she wanted, Jorma would let her stay with him. Teach her more of his technology. Give her work in his shop. An alien life, true, but a safe one.

However, that was something she couldn't do. Pensively, she put on her new underthings. It was time for her to go home.

The wine red top fit snugly, defining her waist. It was cut low at the shoulder, dipping to her cleavage, and closed across the front with little garnet tinted glass snaps. The sleeves ended in rolls at her elbows, held up by a small strap and another snap. The hem flared a bit at her hips, longer in the back, and was slit in a way that allowed for her tail. She took a couple of deep breaths, lifted her shoulders and arms, twisted her torso, and decided it would do.

The pants were simpler. They snapped low across her hips, form fitting soft black material that didn't aggravate her fur. They were probably made for a dog, then, since rabbit fur was notoriously difficult to tangle. Jorma had even traded some of her skirll pelts and meat for footwear and gloves that left her claws free.

Done, she stood in the middle of the empty room, paws limp at her side, and listened to the bath finish draining. She felt different. It wasn't just the clothes, although they were a large part of it. Thoughtfully, she combed her claws through the black spots near the tips of her long white hair, and then pinned it back. She positioned herself in front of the mirror.

Turning one way and then another, she studied her reflection. Oddly, the petite, compact woman in the silvered glass reminded her of the leggy cheetah she'd seen fighting with the princes the night of the festival. This woman might be a warrior, too. In her dreams.

She tried out a fighting pose. Another. Started to giggle. She and Lepra had clowned around like this when they were younger, pretending they were clerics or mighty warrior women roaming the lands. Her new outfit moved beautifully with her, stretching over newfound muscles. Losing herself in her daydreams, she ended up with her laser rifle in her paws, shooting imaginary enemies in the mirror. The gun didn't need years of intensive training to use effectively. If she practiced with it each day, there wouldn't be much she couldn't hit. She aimed at the ceiling lamp; the lock on the window; the doorknob.

That was how Jorma found her. He opened the door and halted, paper wrapped parcels in his arms, the rifle pointed at his canine nose.

For two seconds they stared at each other. It was hard to say who was more surprised. Face flaming, she closed her lips over her teeth, straightened up from her crouch, and gently put the gun on the table.

"You look ready to take on the world," he commented blandly. "Feel better, Fluffy?"

Too embarrassed to look at him, she simply nodded. She ran a single claw along the rifle's barrel.

"Thunder and I are ready if you are," he said, bustling around. She could hear the crackle of paper.

Jorma had named Lightning, too. She'd been so amused to hear "Thunder" that she hadn't bothered to correct him. It was close enough. Lightning himself didn't mind, for Jorma was the source of endless sugary treats, soft words, and friendly pats and scratches where his tack irritated him most.

"I've got enough food to last us until the City of Dogs thanks to you," he went on. "We should be there in three days."

Jorma's talk of the City of Dogs sent a curl of ice through her middle. Settling her cloak around her shoulders, she followed him out of the inn, not hearing what he was saying, everything she wanted to say making her throat tight. It wasn't until they reached the stable yard that she put a paw on his arm and stopped him.

Mid-sentence, he turned his dark, mournful eyes to her.

She hesitated, drawing a couple of deep breaths, but in the end, she resorted to her crude sign language. Pointing down the road, toward the City of Dogs, she shook her head, eyes prickling with a sorrow that was never far.

"What's that? You aren't coming with me?" For the first time since she had met him, Jorma sounded truly taken aback.

She shook her head again, ears drooping. This time, she pointed southwest – not quite toward Thundera, but definitely back the way they had come.

Although he wouldn't know it, she was planning to go home. To Foret.

He glanced down the road. Back at her. "Are you sure?" he asked seriously.

She nodded. Then, because she didn't know how else to repay him for saving her, she thrust her purse at him, heavy with coin.

"Ah, now, there's no need for that, Fluffy," he muttered through his moustache. "That's yours."

Frowning, she tried again, indicating the laser rifle, but he wouldn't take the money. Still, she could see the regret in his eyes; Jorma was a merchant. Giving the gun away could well be a significant loss for him. It was only his generosity that was giving her a chance at survival.

Then she had another idea. She tucked her purse away, swung her pack and her share of supplies on her shoulders, and approached Lightning.

Lightning. The last tie she had to her sister. She closed her eyes against her tears, held the horse's head between her paws, and rested her forehead against his. Lightning pricked his ears forward, breathing warmth against her chest.

Jorma might keep the horse, or he might sell him. It was out of her hands, but whatever he did, she knew he would take care of Lightning. Thunderian mounts were rare now. She kissed the horse's nose. _Goodbye_.

Then, head high, she began her journey home.

"Fluffy – wait!" Jorma called, but she didn't slow. She raised one arm – to say thank you, to say goodbye, to wish him well.

As for her, she would seek out Rachan, to tell him what had become of the woman they'd both loved. She owed it to Lepra, and to herself.

* * *

_**A/N: **It's funny how my mood affects the things I write. I had meant to go farther in this chapter, but it feels right to break it here even though nothing "exciting" happens. I'm not very good at transitions, though, so I hope this one came out okay. Thoughts?_

_A note on the previous chapter: When I first started writing CC, I started with the very LAST chapter and was working my way backward. In this version, I started at the beginning. Because of that, I've realized that Felline is a bit different than she was when I first created her. Basically, she did have a gunblade - I loved the thought of a cat using a technology/conventional weapon mix. As of this chapter, she no longer has the gunblade - I know now that she would never learn how to use the sword properly. So, last chapter has been changed to reflect that she's armed only with the laser rifle. Which has its own problems. ^_^ Next chapter!_

_I'm thinking about trying to come up with a "character sheet" for Felline. I want to show what she looks like. But here again, I'm not a very good artist and it might take me a while. If I do get it done, would anybody be interested in seeing it?_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Artemis zodiac **(LMAO, that is hilarious! I'm glad I'm not the only one who was like, dafuq are you doing?), **Heart of the Demons** (Oh, thank you. I'm super happy - and relieved - that hijacking Jorma was well received. Can I tell you a secret? I'm not 100% sure I know what happened to Snow and Bastien, either, so that definitely will come up again . . . I should probably lose points or something for not having it set in stone, hehe), **Night Whisperer** (THANK YOU! I was so frightened people were going to be like, what? when Jorma shows up. You really seem to be in tune with Felline, too, which is so amazingly awesome. I love that), **Naiko20** (Welcome! Thank you so much for leaving a review! You really made my day!), **KelseyAlicia** (Welcome to you, too! Woohoo! I'm very grateful you stopped by. Oh, and to answer your question: Yes, it is, and I know, right? I was devastated that it ended!), and **Seeds of Destruction** (Hooray! I'm glad that you too were okay with Jorma and my mini training montage. LOL). All of you, thank you again. You deserve something delicious!_

___Okay, coming up next chapter - "Ramlak Rising" is a part of the story! It's time to bring in the true problems facing all of the ThunderCats. This could be tricky since the story is in Felline's POV, but I'm aware the story isn't about just her. Wish me luck!_

_Sincerely,_

_Anne_


	11. Keep No More Cats Than Will Catch Mice 1

Maybe it was the loneliness of traveling by herself. Maybe it was the blatant destruction left in the wake of the lizard army, which lessened the farther she got from the ruins of Thundera. Maybe it was the ache caused by Lepra's death, the uncertainty as to what had happened to her father, the disappearance of her mother. But she found herself carrying the silver ten in her paw rather than her purse on her journey to Foret.

Lepra had accused her of stealing someone's wish when she had plucked it out of the fountain. Had she? By taking the coin, had she been in part responsible for the empty farmhouses she passed, their windows and doors rammed inward, the burned and salted fields, the slaughtered animals left to rot by the side of the road? Absently, she played with the coin as she walked. At night, she studied Prince Lion-O's profile as she sat in front of her campfire. Thinking of the palace guard with the nice face and the pale gray eyes, she cried herself to sleep, the coin clutched in her fist.

If Lepra had been right, if she had really stolen a wish, then she would keep it safe now in her exile. If she did, perhaps she could be forgiven for the selfish wish she had made.

..::~*~::..

After a few days of hunting for fresh meat so she could stockpile the dried goods Jorma had purchased, she noticed something odd about her rifle.

The bolts, which had been so bright a green they were almost white, were changing color. Jorma had taught her how to take the gun apart and clean the dust out of it, which wires plugged in where and which tabs kept the casing in place (which was neither metal nor ceramic but something in between), and how to "power it down" when not in use, but he'd never said anything about this.

Brows drawn together, she put the rifle to her shoulder, sighted a skirll scolding her from its perch in an evergreen, and fired.

Sure enough, the bolt came out closer to yellow than green, and it seemed slower than before. The skirll got away, chattering madly. Perplexed, she examined the weapon. On the energy pack, a square light was blinking. Yellow, the same color as the bolt.

What on Third Earth did _that_ mean? Green was hot, yellow was cold? Fast and slow? Good and bad? Was it some kind of setting she'd accidentally switched?

Trying to shake off her unease, she finished crafting a holster for it that strapped to her right leg, keeping the long gun flush against her thigh. She could draw it easily from there, and it didn't get in the way when she sat. Not that quickness mattered much, she reflected ruefully, for she hadn't encountered anyone else on the rutted, rocky road.

It wasn't until the rifle started flashing several urgent red lights, and the crimson bolts she shot seemed to crawl through the air, that she understood what was wrong.

The power pack was emptying. No, that wasn't right. Energy and light couldn't fill things like water did. How had Jorma phrased it? It was losing its charge.

And she had no way to recharge it.

..::~*~::..

In the strengthening morning light and increasing heat of early autumn, the flat prairie gradually changed to the rolling, wooded hills of her childhood. The trees got older, taller, and darker, the Rufus River spreading into the valleys, becoming many streams and lakes. The closer she got to Foret, the faster her feet moved. It smelled the same, it looked the same, and when she crested the last hill before the town, she broke into an excited run.

Home. They'd be there, everyone from her childhood, unchanged in the nearly seven months she'd been gone: Mistress Chat scowling in the library; the twins, Lyn and Bob, helping their mother run the tavern; Cougra teaching her new cubs to walk; the mayor; the town guards; the shopkeepers; the farmers. Had they heard what had happened to Thundera? Had they heard from her mother?

However, even before she reached the gate, she knew something was wrong.

The wooden wall that surrounded Foret had been breached. It lay in broken, charred planks, the gate smashed and dangling from its posts. The watchtower was unmanned and roofless.

No one challenged her as she entered the town proper. Every house and shop had been forced open, their occupants either taken or killed, their possessions looted. Foret was a ghost town. Defeated, she stood in the center of the town square, where the only noises came from birds and skirlls and froogs, and tried to keep from crying. There was nothing for her here.

Was Rachan with Lepra now? Had she failed in even that?

It had all been a dream. A waste.

Gods damn it _all_. Viciously, she kicked at the bucket attached to the wishing well. It struck the rock wall and tumbled down to the water below, its rusted chain rattling loudly enough to wake the dead.

Instead, it brought two amphibians blinking into the sunlight.

"What's all this here?" one of them gurgled sleepily, rubbing at her protruding eyes. Her arms were skinny, her legs gangly, her middle as soft and round as a dumpling.

"It's a cat!" the second one said, agog. His webbed hands dangled near his knees. "And here I thought Mumm-Ra had gotten the last of them."

Wide eyed and paralyzed, she stared at the amphibians, whom she hadn't seen lying in the shade on the other side of the fountain. Their skins looked like dirt and moss, their loose clothing not much better. They wore hoods and belts, their ragged pants ending mid-calf. One of them licked mulch off his eye with a long, sticky tongue, making her stomach clench in disgust.

"Hey, she'll be worth a lot to the overseers," the first one said, elbowing her partner. "Looks like our ship's finally come in. Sell her, and we won't have to keep on lookout duty for lizards for the pittance they call wages."

"That's true," he answered slowly, grinning so wide it looked like his warty face had split in two. He removed a canvas sack from his belt, shaking it open. "Here, kitty. Nice kitty."

They'd begun circling the well, one to either side. She backed up, ears flat, eyes flicking between them.

And then the one on her left jumped at her.

She whipped the rifle out of its holster and brought it to her shoulder, but didn't have time to aim. Hoping for the best, she squeezed the trigger.

The rifle spat red. With a scream, the amphibian landed awkwardly at her feet, triangular face in the grass, hugging his ribs. She didn't wait to see what else would happen; she turned tail and fled.

A wet thumping followed, and she dropped to all fours, clawing her way around a sharp turn. The female sailed right over her, but her long tongue flicked out, faster than a whip. It smacked into the ground a second too late, sending a flurry of dry leaves into the air. The male sprang again, powerful legs pumping. Zigzagging to throw off their aim, she gained and scaled the wall and dashed into the woods on the other side, the jeering amphibians jumping after her.

"We'll get you, Snowball!"

"There's nowhere to run, Puss!"

It was darker in the mossy trees, but noisier, too. She crept along, ears swiveling for sounds of her pursuers. Her eyes darted around the trees, noting that the hanging vines, old bark, and even flowers resembled amphibians about to leap out at her. Hardly daring to breathe, she took to the branches above, clawing her way along much like Bastien and the others had done in the games so long ago.

When she reached a bit of swampy ground near a lake what felt like hours later, she built a hide out of a fallen log and some woodland growth. She settled on her stomach, rifle propped on a branch, and waited.

She was willing to bet that all of the cats' towns had been raided like Foret. The lizards weren't taking any chances of retaliation from their lifelong enemies. Which meant that her options were dwindling; there was nowhere for her to go, but no reason for her to stay.

It had sounded like the amphibians were working for the lizards, capturing surviving cats to sell as slaves. She'd heard as much from the lizards on the night of the attack.

What she hadn't heard before was the mention of Mumm-Ra.

Could it be true? The ancient being of evil was, or so she had believed, merely another fairy tale – the bogeyman that kept cubs awake at night. He was a creature unlike any other, or so the stories went. Ever living, the greatest sorcerer of all.

Although she had braced her elbows in the damp ground, she couldn't hold the rifle steady. After all, technology had been proven to be real. What if Mumm-Ra, too, was real? It seemed ridiculous. Impossible. Yet it was her fear that kept her vigilant now.

A wood thrush burst into song overhead, and she peered up through her leafy covering. Although the sun was high, the shadows remained deep and green. And it was chilly. She pulled up her hood and secured it. If the amphibians didn't make an appearance by morning, then she would go back the way she had come, try to meet up with Jorma in the City of Dogs.

The surface of the lake rippled as if a fish had come up for a bite, but when she fixed her eyes on it, she could see the slow rise of bubbles. Something big lurked there, breathing where no cat could. Soundlessly, she shifted the rifle, her eye to the sights. When the amphibian woman started to rise from the water, she squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

She jerked the gun back, staring in horror at the blank displays. No more lights. No more charge.

A large, webbed hand locked around her throat and lifted her bodily from her hide. Although she squirmed and thrashed, the amphibian man held her easily, letting her dangle like a fish on a hook.

"You're a feisty one," he gurgled at her, as if through water. Her vision had gone fuzzy, and it felt like her tongue was too big for her mouth. No matter how hard she dug with her claws, she couldn't dislodge the strong, thin fingers cutting off her air. "Here, Spadefoot, get her in the bag."

She felt more fingers on her ankles and her struggles redoubled. The woman, Spadefoot, must have been having trouble with her tail, for she grabbed it and folded it painfully in order to stuff her feet first into the bag. She would have screamed, but she couldn't even open her jaws. Instead, she twisted around, sank her toe claws into Spadefoot's flabby belly, feeling for the soft spot below the rib cage, and kicked with all of her strength. Hot wet cascaded over her feet and Spadefoot let go of her tail, gagging and hacking.

"Spadefoot! Gods, what have you done?" the man holding her yelled. He moved to tuck her under his arm like a rolled up blanket, no doubt to try and help his dying partner, but she had other ideas.

Her rifle was dead, but she was a cat, wasn't she? Well, it was time she started _acting _like one.

As soon as her windpipe was free, she sucked in a huge breath and let it out in an echoing yowl. She latched onto the soft white throat of her persecutor with her fangs, scratching at every bit of him she could reach. Her claws snagged on clothing and leather and buckles, and then she started reaching skin.

"What the – _yah_! Get off _get off_ _GET OFF_!" The amphibian began a gruesome dance, frog legs flailing, punching her repeatedly in the head while she hissed and howled, determined to slice him open like she had done to Spadefoot. They were well matched. Each blow to her skull made the world shudder and her sensitive ears ring, but the amphibian was losing blood fast. Finally, he hit her with the power of desperation and she let go, dazed. Then, gibbering and blubbering, he threw her far out over the lake.

She knew she was in trouble, but she couldn't save herself. The clouds in the blue sky blurred through half shut eyes, her arms and legs limp and heavier than her rifle. With a seamless transition, she hit the water headfirst and plunged into the murky depths. She struggled, or tried to, panic keeping her conscious.

Water burned her sore throat as she instinctively sucked in a breath. Her lungs filled and immediately contracted, expelling water, but her traitorous diaphragm made her inhale more. Like a runaway horse, her heart galloped in her chest and then tripped. Tripped again.

Losing her grip on reality, she never felt the small paws closing around her arms, or the difference in the water pressure as someone swam her toward the surface.

In the fresh woodland air, she vomited lake water until she felt like her stomach had turned inside out, and then puked up more. Two small bodies heaved her onto shore.

"What do you two think you're doing?" someone bellowed in a clear tenor. With her cheek pressed into the sandy beach, she could feel more than hear the approach of many feet over her continued ragged coughing.

"You shouldn't run off like that," a deeper voice chided, sounding extremely put out.

"Look!" a small voice chirped. "She's a cat!"

"I told you we heard one," a second small voice said smugly.

"A snow leopard. She's half drowned," a woman said, but a snort from overhead was the only response. With some asperity, the woman demanded, "You saw those amphibians back there. You don't think we should have let her die, do you?"

A long pause. "No, of course not," the tenor growled. An anxious _snyarf_ made him sigh.

"Hey, are you alive?" the first small voice asked quietly in her ear.

"Can you get up?" the second one queried.

Befuddled, throat afire, she pushed herself up on shaky arms. Inches from her nose, two wildcat kittens stared at her with golden eyes, offering her identical proud grins. Near them, a cheetah – _the_ cheetah! – steadied her with a strong arm. "It's all right," she said, her beautiful face worried. "You're safe now."

And behind the cheetah, larger than life, the princes Tygra and Lion-O glared down at her, neither one looking very happy.

Felline fainted.

* * *

_**A/N: **Greetings and Salutations, Dear Readers!_

_Yes, all right, I should be banned from commenting on what's coming in the next chapter if the next chapter isn't written yet. All I have to say for myself is that the woods appear briefly in Lion-O & Co.'s trek west in ep. 1-3, and that's where they meet up with Felline. But look! They finally did meet! :3_

_Reviewer Thanks! **KelseyAlicia **(Thank you! I'm flattered that you read all the way through), **Seeds of Destruction** (Thank you! This one is quite a bit longer, so I hope that's all right), **Heart of the Demons **(Here you go! Hope it lives up to what it should be!), **Night Whisperer** (You know, I'm a little sad I can't send more of a personal thank-you or even return the favor. Do you have an account at all, or maybe one someplace like DeviantArt? Anyway - Thanks for the fantastic reviews, always. I'm glad you're enjoying this! X3), **Artemis zodiac** (Hee, thanks! This one's longer - hope you enjoyed it!), and **Blacktiger93** (Welcome! Thank you so much for stopping by and reviewing! I really appreciate the review, believe me). Have I mentioned before how much I love reviews? I really, really do! They make my days so full of win! Thanks to all of you. *hugs*_

___Oh, Felline, you're such a girly girl. But careful, don't piss her off or she'll bite you. O_o LOL! I know I'm just a cheesy romantic at heart, but I had to bring the drowning aspect back. Too bad it was the ThunderKittens who saved her and not Prince Charming over there. *snicker*_

_Most Humbly Grateful,_

_Anne_


	12. Keep No More Cats, part two

"Not a chance!"

"Please, Lion-O? _Please_? We'll take care of her. Promise!" The two young voices were raised in unison, the sweet sopranos resolving into a boy's and a girl's.

"No! She's not a pet!"

"You brought Snarf along," the girl pointed out.

"Yeah, what do you call him?" the boy accused.

"Snarf can take care of himself. _You_ stay here with her if you want. I'm not stopping now to babysit another one of you –"

"The sun's going down, Lion-O." The deep voice spoke this time, sardonic and challenging. "We'd better make camp unless you plan on bumbling around in the dark."

"If I have to, I will," the tenor snarled.

"Don't be dense," the other drawled.

"I am _king_!"

The shouting roused her. Aching all over, she opened her eyes. A tiny nose bumped her cheek, and whiskers tickled her ear; the little, red furred, tassel eared petcat happily said _snyah_ when he noticed she was awake. Felline blinked at him. There used to be a bunch just like him in Foret, living in the barns, getting fat off meece. This one had big, green eyes, off white stockings, and a round tummy. The stripes down his back were butter yellow. He purred encouragingly at her, scrubbing his white face against hers.

"I wonder where she came from," the cheetah said softly, obviously unaware that Felline could hear her.

"I wonder where she got something like this," the tiger next to her said, holding up Felline's rifle. He peered through the sights, tried the trigger, examined the depleted energy pack. "It's not exactly a toy." There was a sort of possessive admiration in his voice that Felline didn't like.

"_No_!" Lion-O bellowed. "Don't do that here!"

But he was too late. The two wet, underfed kittens, already crouched on all fours, shook themselves vigorously, soaking him down in seconds. After his unsuccessful leap to avoid the damage, he snarled impressively through clenched teeth, and the fluff tailed kittens dashed off in opposite directions with a chorused, "Yikes!"

Felline weaved to her feet, drenched, and resisted the instinct to shake herself dry, too. They were still on the lakeshore, but the sun was setting, what she could see of the sky dominated by Leo's smoky indigo swirls.

They weren't going to speak for her, she realized. No one but the kittens seemed to want her around, and she suspected her novelty was enough for them to go against Lion-O's wishes. The other two adults didn't seem to care one way or another about her.

Felline swallowed against the soreness in her throat. She couldn't let them leave her here, alone. She would just have to plead for her place.

A noble's daughter was expected to behave in a certain way. Fighting the dull pounding in her head – thanks to that wretched amphibian slaver – she approached her new king and sank to her knees, reaching out one trembling hand. Lightly, she put her fingertips on the Gauntlet of Omens attached to his belt, the golden metal warm to the touch; whether it was his body heat or some inherent magic, she couldn't say. The Gauntlet acted as a sheath for the fabled Sword of Omens, the Eye of Thundera set in its hilt a dormant red jewel that caught the last rays of the sun. Like an echo, the red jewel in the center of Lion-O's belt flared. Each cat wore a similar jewel, marking them as ThunderCats. Felline, in her dog's clothing, did not, but that did not change who she was.

_I am a ThunderCat, and I swear my fealty to you_. That was what her gesture meant. She met King Lion-O's furious gaze. His eyes were a darker, more complex blue than hers. She felt very small in her oversized, waterlogged cloak, because if anything, she saw only unwelcoming anger in those eyes.

Ruining the regal effect, water slowly dripped from his chin. Both of them were shivering.

"So!" Prince Tygra said loudly, Felline's rifle on his shoulder, a grin playing around his mouth. "Who's up for building a fire?"

..::~*~::..

It was a pitiful thing, Felline realized, to not be able to thank her rescuers. Or to tell them her name.

It felt good to hear the mix of cat voices after so long, and words gained life inside of her for the first time in weeks. But her own voice remained locked away. It wasn't like she had any kind of ink or parchment to write down her life story. And even if she did have the materials, she was reluctant to share who she was, what had brought her here. These strangers, what would they care about Lepra's death? They didn't seem to care about Felline's _life_. Lepra was only one of many, and the atrocity of her death was a private grief that belonged to Felline alone. She sat there drying in front of the brightly burning fire, miserable and silent, as Lion-O roughly explained why she couldn't stay with them. He seemed constantly on edge, ready to explode at the slightest spark. She knew the feeling.

King Claudus was dead, that much she had guessed. Lion-O told her of the traitor Grune, who had sold his loyalties to technology and the nightmare that was Mumm-Ra. She could not tell him of the trick with the rock. It didn't matter anymore, anyway.

"We thought we were the only cats left," WilyKat said with the candor of children, and Felline, grief for her sister pressing hard against her sternum, nodded.

With the help of Jaga, Lion-O, his brother Tygra, and the cleric Cheetara had escaped the fall of Thundera with the Sword of Omens. Jaga himself had not survived.

A cleric! Felline stared at Cheetara with new respect. No wonder she'd fought so skillfully. She was one of the elite, tasked with keeping both the king and the secrets of the Sword safe. It was for the Sword that Mumm-Ra had attacked the city.

"Jaga, my teacher, has asked us to seek out the Book of Omens," Cheetara said, wrapping herself in a nondescript brown cloak to ward off the chill night.

"We're on a mission to avenge my father," Lion-O corrected harshly, and Cheetara subsided, brows pinched. Felline suspected this had been an ongoing argument.

"Lion-O," Tygra started, frowning at his rudeness, but his brother stood up, paws clenched.

"I won't hear any more about it! We're going after Mumm-Ra, and that's final. I don't need any more _baggage_."

He spat the last word at the kittens and Felline before stalking out of the firelight. He stood with his muscular arms crossed, his stiff back to them.

Reclining before the fire, Tygra rolled his eyes. He was no longer dressed in royal blue, Felline noticed, but rather wore fatigues and armor in forest green. He'd succeeded in dismantling her rifle, and was now occupied in trying to fit one of the clips from his own pistol into the battery slot. Naturally, they weren't a match, and he reassembled the rifle with regret.

Then, he stood, and moved as if he was going to throw it in the lake.

Felline jumped up and snatched it from him, baring her teeth. _That's mine_.

Prince Tygra raised his black eyebrows, staring down at her. "Look, kid," he said, "it's out of juice. There's no point lugging it around. We're low on supplies as it is. We each have to carry our own weight."

With her own roll of the eyes, she holstered the gun. It was hers, and he'd had no business messing with it. He wanted supplies? Fine. From what she could see, she was doing better than the whole lot of them, even if hunting was no longer an option. She picked up her pack and flung it at him.

He caught it, taken aback.

It was Cheetara who opened the pack, curiosity in her orange eyes, which widened when she saw the food and tools inside. Gently, she took the pack from the prince and smiled at Felline. "Thank you," she said. "This will help."

"Where did you get all this, anyway?" Tygra asked. "Were you with your family? Did you live somewhere around here?"

Felline stared at him. Then at the rest of them. They were all watching her.

Then it dawned on her. They thought she was a _cub_. No wonder they were treating her so cavalierly. True, she was only a head taller than WilyKit and WilyKat, but on the same principle, she was only a head shorter than Lion-O. She couldn't look _that_ young! Could she?

It didn't matter. There wasn't anything she could say, so she merely shook her aching head and returned to her spot by the fire.

..::~*~::..

She discovered that the way to not be left behind was simply to keep up.

Lion-O led the way due west, heading for Mumm-Ra's lair. They eventually left the wooded hills for a broad red desert, where sharp, windswept rocks pointed toward the setting sun. Felline brought up the rear of their train, keeping Kit and Kat between her and Cheetara; the two women made sure the kittens didn't lag behind, or wander too far off. Up at the front, Tygra constantly needled his brother, who wrapped himself in his cloak and marched ahead without a backward glance. Little Snarf trotted along at his master's heels, his tufted ears drooping with weariness as the hot days dragged on.

At night, Felline pitched her pup tent and retired to it soon after dinners that steadily decreased in size. She lay on her sleep roll, listening to the others talk and argue.

How could Lion-O be doing this? Kit and Kat had survived the fall of Thundera; she herself had avoided both death and slavery. What if there were others? Shouldn't they be working to rebuild the kingdom, rather than chase after revenge that would probably kill them all? She didn't understand him, not at all. And by the dissent in the ranks, no one else agreed with his choices, either.

Stubborn to a fault, he took no counsel. To Mumm-Ra, they were to go.

She rolled onto her side, eyes closed, and tried to find sleep. That was when the tent rustled, and two small bodies burrowed inside.

Shocked, Felline raised her arm, but couldn't sit up inside the tiny tent. A chilly Kat curled up against her front, while an equally icy Kit snuggled into her back, wrapping a thin arm around her waist.

_Are they afraid_? she wondered. Lonely? Or were they just cold? And hungry?

The kittens began to purr, their breathing slowing. Hesitantly, Felline lowered her arm, hugging Kat closer. His brown and white hair tickled her nose, but she couldn't roll over without squashing Kit. It was an awkward arrangement, but she remembered sleeping with her own twin sister, creeping into Lepra's bed when she needed comfort. Was this really so bad?

She shifted, trying to dislodge a spiny cactus from her side. The purring was putting her to sleep.

_As long as Snarf doesn't come in here_, she thought with a yawn,_ we should be okay, I guess_.

* * *

_**A/N: **NaNoWriMo is almost half over. I'm still shooting for 50k in 30 days, but I seriously doubt I will reach The End by then. Hee!_

_I just want to say - I had NO IDEA Tygra would be so much fun to write! He's such a brat._

_I also want to say - I think it's funny that Felline doesn't realize the kittens are trying to comfort her as much as they are seeking comfort themselves. Kids aren't as dumb as she thinks, especially since she keeps getting mistaken for one. Self-centered Felline!_

_Anyway._

_Reviewer Thanks! **KelseyAlicia **(Awesome! It's as good to know what works as what doesn't. Thank you), **Guest** (Hi, who is this? Should I be saying "Welcome" or "Welcome back"? Thanks for the review!), **Blacktiger93 **(Hooray, I'm glad you've come back and want to keep reading! I was tentative to write this chapter because I don't want to mess with the canon characters or their personalities, but it was loads of fun to let them tell me what they think of Felline. Onward, ho!), **Heart of the Demons** (You've been very patient. I'm thrilled you liked it!), and **Night Whisperer** (Well, I don't know about "perfect," but I will take it! LOL! Action scenes aren't my strongest suit, can you tell? I have to work really hard at them . . . but I, too, was excited to get a move on. *grin* I'll try to do the existing story justice for all of you!). I probably didn't say it enough, so here it is again: THANK YOU for reviewing!_

___Well, I don't have much else to say, so I shall leave you to the rest of your day!_

___All my love,_

_Anne_


	13. Keep No More Cats, part three

Felline had no idea where they were.

It was brutally hot. The six cats sought shelter in the shade of one of the towering rock formations. Yesterday, they'd passed from the windblown desert sands to this strange landscape of twisting corridors. The rocks were stacked like leaning towers of coins, hundreds of feet high. It was a natural maze, and they were getting nowhere fast.

Kit and Kat flopped onto the cooked ground, backs together, panting. Broiling under her cloak, Felline joined them, settling gingerly on a rock.

Lion-O shaded his eyes against the white hot sun blazing in the bronze sky, figuring out their next move, but Cheetara was taking advantage of the break as well, leaning against a rock that couldn't be any cooler than the one on which Felline had perched. The cleric opened their last pack, her yellow hair wilting in the heat.

"We've lost the trail, Lion-O," Tygra said, exasperated.

"And our supplies are dangerously low," Cheetara added, shaking the empty pack as if hoping food would come tumbling out of it. She sighed when nothing did.

Scowling, Lion-O pointed west. "I don't care. We keep moving forward."

With a swirl of his dirty cloak, he was off again. The sun tangled in his hair, burning in the red strands.

No one bothered to get up, sweating as they were even in the shade. More than one belly grumbled loudly enough for all to hear. Lion-O kept walking.

Snarf let out a tired _snyah_, plopping onto his chin. The faithful little petcat had reached his limit, apparently. However, as if he'd heard a sudden noise, his ears pricked forward and he lifted his head, blinking to the south.

The kittens crawled over to him, their creamy, long haired tails in the air.

"What is _that_?" Kat burst out, which brought Lion-O back in six big bounds.

Felline muffled a giggle.

_Snyaar_, Snarf breathed in awe, which about summed it up for all of them. There in the cliff wall, an arch opened onto a whitish sky and something that heaved and glittered golden under the brutal sun.

"Snarf just found the sandsea," Lion-O announced. "Mumm-Ra's lair must be just on the other side."

This time, when he left the shade, everyone kept right on his heels. There was a cooler breeze coming through the aperture, and Felline let it take her hood off her head.

Tygra, the tallest of them, reached the strange shore first. "Do you see a way around it?" he called, clearly impatient to get out of the sun as soon as possible.

Eagerly, Felline drank in the view. She'd never been to the sandsea, having grown up surrounded by cool, green woods and rolling farmland. Dropping her pack on the beach, she walked right up to it, marveling at the texture of the wavelets that lapped at her toes, leaving behind granules that glistered like gold dust in her fur. It was some kind of liquefied sand, the wind pushing it into high, choppy peaks and waves. A rhythmic rustle and plash came from the waves. It smelled like sand and salt.

At her side, the kittens gasped. "I think I see something _better_," Kat said, eyes huge.

It seemed as if they had all been struck as dumb as Felline. There, not too far, a floating mirage, a dream, a godsend, was –

"Food," Lion-O said, the first real smile Felline had seen from him gracing his face.

That single word broke the dam. They all started talking at once, except for her, but even she could feel joy and hunger swelling inside. Cheering and laughing, the kittens, starving and suffering sunstroke, raced into the sandy surf and dove on top of the food, sending up a spray of barbecued meat, whole fruits, and roasted potatoes. Felline could smell spices and juices, and her stomach woke up and complained urgently. When had they eaten last? Yesterday? The day before?

Lion-O waded in next, matter-of-factly picking up a bobbing piece of fruit in each paw. Buffeted by the scratchy waves, Felline nearly had to swim to join them, but she soon learned the trick to staying upright and laid claim to whatever drifted within reach. The sandsea's waters beaded up and rolled off each delicious morsel. It all tasted wonderful.

And then Cheetara stopped chewing. "Hey. Anyone else wondering where all this came from?"

The men and kittens didn't stop stuffing their faces, but Cheetara scanned the horizon while Felline twitched her ears back and forth, a hot potato skewered in her claws. She didn't hear anything extraordinary – no, wait, what was that? It sounded like a zipper coming undone, then like a rope buzzing through a pulley. And it originated behind her.

She happened to be facing Lion-O, and she saw his expression change. Next thing she knew, something ripped her feet out from under her and she slammed right into him, someone big and heavy sandwiching her in from the other side, and then they were yanked into the air in a fountain of sand. By the hollow feeling in her middle, she'd left her stomach in the sea with the potato while she and the others, all mashed together and yelling, sailed higher and began to flip over. Breathless and voiceless, she buried her face in Lion-O's chest and hung on for dear life.

They landed with a bruising _wham_, bouncing hard enough to knock the wind out of her. Felline blinked away the black stars in her vision, willing her diaphragm to unclench, squirming against the pieces of weaponry and bits of armor digging into her from all sides. A low growl reverberated through her and she turned her head slightly to locate its source.

Honey and cream fur filled her horizon. Lion-O was lying half on top of her, his throat inches from her mouth. She recoiled, or tried to – Snarf's hot, furry body was balled up on her other side, WilyKit groaning quietly beneath both of them, and – oh, gods – that was Tygra's foot by her ear. She flinched back the other way, into Lion-O's heat. He growled again, glaring up at their captors through the ropes of a fishing net. His arms seemed to be pinned.

She looked up, which from her position was really down. Across weather beaten planks, a pair of webbed feet approached. She couldn't stop a hiss, thinking of the amphibians in Foret, but her eyes traveled down – up – a pair of scaly legs, mottled orange and white, to a carp's whiskered face, giant eyes shining green in the hot sun.

"Quite the catch, I'd say," the carp man said, as if meaning _well, what do you know_?

Like a many legged crustacean, the cats struggled, only serving to tangle themselves up more. Tygra's frustrated growls joined Lion-O's, but the fishman grinned, thick, flat lips peeling back from tiny, pointed teeth. Four more fishmen joined him, gawking at them, their voices rising in a babble.

Third Earth was a big place. It was obvious the fishmen had never seen Thunderians, and she had never dreamed people like they existed. She didn't like the smell of them, briny and vaguely like spoiling fish in the sun. The planks beneath them gently rose and fell like a giant's breathing. This was a ship, of sorts, with leathery, dull red sails scraping at the greenish sky. The fishmen gabbled amongst themselves, paying little heed to feline discomfort, as if their catch had been nothing more sentient than a bundle of seaweed.

She couldn't breathe, squashed under so many bodies. Lion-O, small for a lion, still outweighed her by more than half, and one arm and both of her legs were trapped beneath him. They were at the complete mercy of these fishmen. How could they have been so _stupid_?

Kat and Kit grunted and meowed, sounding dangerously close to tears. Flutters of panic were building; they had to get out of that net, but even if they did, Felline had little hope of reaching the sandsea's shore from there. They were at the complete mercy of –

"What's all that racket?"

The fishmen had strange accents, but this voice was even more coarse, crusty, and angry, and accompanied by the splash of real water. "That better be the ramlak you spineless jellyfish are carryin' on about."

The voice belonged to a truly ugly man, his scales the slimy white of a grub, his left eye closed over a long but badly healed scar. Every other step gave off a thump and a mechanical hiss; when he rounded the netted cats, Felline could see that he limped on a brass peg leg, fitted with a miniature bellows. He peered at them through a slitted, marble blue eye, scowling over auburn fins that may have been a fishy beard. "Another worthless haul," he sourly pronounced. He spoke to a fat, red scaled fishman. "Take what the crew doesn't eat of them, and turn it into chum."

Chuckling wetly, the red one steeled a butcher's knife against a boning knife, leering at them.

"Whiskers," Lion-O said under his breath.

There were too many to fight, even if they hadn't all been winded in the landing. Cold, slimy, three fingered fish hands hauled them first out of the net and second into a ring, tying their paws behind their backs in the middle, passing many lengths of rope around, securing them together roughly at the waist. No fewer than eight fishmen closed ranks, pointing serrated spear guns at them. Instead of hair, they had stiff fins cresting their heads. Felline sat cross legged between Cheetara and WilyKit, her fingers going numb.

On the other side of the circle, the one eyed fishman gave Lion-O a good approximation of a growl. "That bait was meant for the beast," he complained.

"I am Lion-O, Lord of the ThunderCats, and I _order_ you to release us," Lion-O snapped.

Incredulous, Felline looked over her shoulder at the back of his head. Was he serious? This wasn't Cat's Lair, and these weren't his servants to boss around. Hadn't he ever heard of diplomacy when he had a spear gun pointed between his eyes?

"Oh?" The fishman burst out laughing, and his crew joined suit. "It talks!" he said gleefully. "And it's still got some _fight_ in it. Well, Lion-O, Lord of the ThunderCats," he sneered, "I am Koinelius Tunar, captain of this ship, and I order you filleted."

Felline stared at him with new eyes. Did these odd, fishy sailors of the sandy sea really eat beings that walked on two legs and spoke the same language? What kind of monsters were they?

And from what creature had the barbecued meat they'd eaten in the sandsea been? Suddenly, she wasn't feeling so good.

"Let's start with the little ones," the chef put in, the gold hoops thrust through his hairless moustaches glinting, and Felline's hackles rose. "Their meat'll be the most deliciously tender."

Before he could follow through on his threat, however, there was a bang almost like a gunshot. The entire ship shuddered, throwing the chef to the deck. A second bang and quake, and the fish captain whirled around.

A long tentacle, which could have passed for a thorny vine in the jungle and was about as thick as Felline's leg, snaked aboard and wrapped, quick as a blink, around one of the fallen fishmen. The hapless sailor was dragged into the heaving sandsea, screaming his head off. More of the tentacles curled out of the depths with a different kind of scream, high pitched and echoing, these bigger around than Felline's entire body. Whatever they were attached to, it was huge, possibly bigger than the whole flying ship.

"Ramlak," Captain Tunar breathed, unafraid and intense. "At long last, my wretched quarry returns."

Cheetara was already at work on the ropes binding her wrists, and Felline tried to help. The two women sawed and picked at the hemp with their claws, severing any they could reach. WilyKit's frightened whimpers warned Felline a second before a tentacle smashed into the deck, splintering the planks. She ducked, covering Kit with her body.

A fishman shot his spear at the tentacle, but that only served to make the creature angry. It lifted the sailor into the air and whipped him back down again the way a bird might break the back of a reptile. Dazed, the fishman lost hold of the spear gun, which skittered across the deck.

Right at Cheetara. Quick as a snake striking, she snagged the gun with her foot.

"Come on, you filthy maggots," Captain Tunar was yelling. "This is the moment we've waited for. Fight!"

Only the ramlak seemed to be listening. It tore up more decking, coiled about the mast and brought it down in pieces. The deck canted horribly.

While Felline continued to claw at the ropes binding their wrists, Cheetara and Tygra worked in tandem with their feet to position the spear gun so that its barbed harpoon could saw through the ropes holding them all together. As soon as the ropes parted, the cats scattered.

And not a moment too soon. As if it could feel their heartbeats against its thick green skin, its tentacles drove into the deck, right where they had been sitting.

* * *

_**A/N: ***peeks in* Hello, Friends._

_I am so sorry for my absence these last couple of days. I actually had this chapter written, but I was struck down by one of the nastiest flu bugs I've ever had the displeasure to meet. I couldn't eat or drink anything for a full day. It quite literally knocked me flat. It was AWFUL. But I'm better now, so I have a lot of catching up to do._

_This chapter, as I know you noticed straight off, is pretty much "word for word" the first part of episode 3. Actually, I had to laugh a bit while writing it, because I did some extensive description of a sandsea in my FFXII fic, ASftP, and it was like treading old ground - I had to come up with a new way of describing it. Anyway, I do apologize that there's nothing "new" here. I decided to break the chapter between absolute canon, here, and where Felline actually does something different, in the next chapter. There's a lot more opportunity for her to run amok alone in the second part. I did include all of this here because I feel it was important for her to learn about what's driving Lion-O and the others. I hope I did the episode justice!_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Guest **(Oh, dear! I hate to be smug, but I'm not going to answer that. I will only confirm that she does speak again), **KelseyAlicia** (Thank you! And I saw that you posted another chapter to "Brother Where Are You?" so I will be by soon to check it out), **Blacktiger93 **(Hahaha, I had to laugh when I read the first part of your review, because it occurred to me that they DON'T interact with her while she doesn't speak, not really. But that will change soon. I'm super happy you're looking forward to the "fun" parts, by which I mean those are the parts I'm excited to write. By the way, you would really want longer chapters? I keep them short because I don't want anyone to feel overwhelmed . . . but I made this one pretty long, so what do I know? LOL!), **Heart of the Demons** (Thank you. Please let me know if I start to stray!), **Seeds of Destruction** (D'awww, glad you liked!), **Night Whisperer** (AWESOME, thank you for letting me know that I did succeed where I most wanted to! I love all of the canon characters so much and I want to stay true and make them happy, hee), and **Artemis zodiac** (Oh, please never apologize for that! I never EXPECT reviews, I'm only ecstatic when I do get them! *hug* For last-last chapter, I'll see if I can tighten up that bit because I didn't mean him to sound worried for them, only annoyed that they ran off while he was still talking to them, lmao! And for last chapter, it's pretty awesome that you saw a part of Felline I wasn't intentionally putting in there, but you are absolutely right about it now that I've gone back and analyzed what's been driving her. I'm impressed!). __THANK YOU FOR REVIEWING. Again, and again, a thousand thanks._

___By the way, a little trivia from Anne's fever-muddled brain: It drove me nuts, absolutely bonkers, every time that chef "sharpened" his knives. You can't steel a knife against another knife! It doesn't work that way! *foams at the mouth*_

_I've really missed you guys, could you tell? I'll go shut up now. :3_

_Anne_


	14. Keep No More Cats, part four

Lion-O was the first to be taken. Felline heard his hoarse shout and turned around in time to see the tentacles snatch up Tygra and Cheetara. Trying to keep her footing on the listing ship, Felline dove after Snarf's tufted tail. It disappeared between some cargo containers, but a tentacle seized her ankle mid leap. She hit the planks spectacularly, arms comically outstretched, banging her chin so hard her teeth clacked. The tentacle slithered up her leg and constricted around her middle, lifting her into the air. Tighter. Tighter. She feared it would squeeze her in half.

Then she heard something that would haunt her for days.

"_ThunderCats, ho_!"

It was Lion-O, calling to the Sword of Omens, his clear tenor sounding older, more mature. The unmistakable crackle of lightning made her fur stand on end.

And then the eeriest sound of all: The awakened Sword answered. It growled in a strange, otherworldly voice that resonated deep within her. It was a voice she knew instinctively. It was in her blood. It was a voice that, if it commanded, she must obey.

But there were no commands. Next thing she knew, the pain lessened and she landed neatly on her feet, taking the force of her fall in her bent knees, the severed tentacle writhing on the deck. Clear water rather than any kind of ichors pooled under it, just as if Lion-O had cropped a real vine. What _was_ this thing from the sandsea?

Lion-O straightened next to her, the full sized Sword of Omens in his right paw, the Gauntlet on his left.

For just a moment, Captain Tunar gaped at him, and then he rounded furiously on his stunned crew, who were sheltering by the wheelhouse. "The food's fightin' better than you!

"That's the spirit, boyo," he went on. Now that they were all on even ground – so to speak – Felline saw how tall the fishman really was, and how torn and scarred the fins along the left side of his head and left forearm were, and she shrank behind her king. However, Captain Tunar had eyes only for the wielder of the Sword. He was grinning, a maniacal light in his good eye. "Show this cowardly crew how it's done!"

The ramlak howled. One of its tentacles swooped toward Captain Tunar, who calmly drew his own cutlass and sliced it off. More water poured onto the deck, splashing Felline. The other cats were fighting the tentacles, even the kittens, using their baby fangs and tiny, needle-sharp claws. Her stomach turned over; she didn't think she would be able to fight like that anymore. She was neither a kitten nor a savage.

At any rate, she wouldn't have to fight. Not right then, anyway. Screaming in pain, the ramlak withdrew its remaining tentacles, sinking below the ocher waves. It left the flying ship with torn sails and water sloshing out of the hold, but the ship itself stabilized on its repulsors.

Faces grim, Tygra and Cheetara joined Felline behind Lion-O, pistol and staff in paw.

"Run, you coward!" Captain Tunar bellowed over the side of his ship. He shook his webbed fist at the sandsea. "You can't escape me forever. I'll follow you straight to the flaming pits of Magmel before I give you up!"

"Now," Lion-O said to him scathingly, "what were we talking about before the interruption?"

Captain Tunar turned instantly around, but he remained unapologetic. "I believe we were discussing how we'd fillet you," he said, treating everything like good fun and games, and clapped the young lion on the shoulder as if to placate him, "but had I known you were such fine warriors, I would have gladly served my own first mate to you on a platter."

He was grinning again, but the orange and white fishman, apparently the luckless first mate, nearly lost his jaw to the deck as his captain's words sank in.

"Listen up, fishies!" Captain Tunar called over the splash of the sandsea. "These fine fellows are our new shipmates, so treat 'em like you would your own scaly brothers. And fix the little ones some food."

"Food!" the kittens sang, starry eyed.

Well, too late to stop or caution them. Felline closed her eyes and turned her head away. This fishman was crazy, plain and simple. Surely Lion-O wasn't going to let his actions slide. They couldn't listen to Tunar, captain or not, and certainly couldn't trust him, not after the stunts he'd pulled –

But Captain Tunar, his webbed hand splayed on Lion-O's shoulder, began to walk away, still talking amiably, and Lion-O was going with him. Kit and Kat, too, eagerly followed the red scaled chef below decks.

Before Felline could find a voice in which to protest, Cheetara collapsed her staff and tucked it into the loop attached to the back of her shorts, and then propped her paws on her hips. In spite of her withering glare, the first mate cheerfully handed her and Felline a pair of brooms.

"Welcome to the crew," he said, smiling like an idiot.

"Why don't I feel good about this, Tygra?" Cheetara asked, reluctantly accepting the broom, but Tygra was no longer at her side. "Tygra?"

Felline nudged her, and then pointed to the rail. There was Tygra, losing what lunch he'd managed to consume into the heaving golden sea.

The two women sighed, resigned. Following the bland instructions of the mottled first mate, they got to work scrubbing the deck clean.

..::~*~::..

The ship, Felline decided, was little better than a flying wreck. Her construction was haphazard at best, a mix of wood and metal bolted together on what she could only guess was pure whim. Or maybe by whatever material had been cheapest at the time. Her crew seemed to be as varied as the cats themselves, although Felline would be hard pressed to name their different genera. They went about their business professionally enough, so long as the ship stayed steady and the sandy sea quiet, accepting the cats as a school of fish might part for and swim around a piece of jetsam from a shipwreck.

From their conversation, she learned that the ramlak had somehow drunk all of the water from the fishmen's oasis home, and that getting it back was what they had set out on this mysterious sandsea to do.

They did have some water. Once, when no one was looking, she tried to ferret out where the kittens had been taken, but when she stole down a ladder she splashed up to her knees in lukewarm, brackish water before she realized what had happened. She leapt out again, aghast. It was very black down there, almost oily, and it smelled terrible. The belly of the flying ship, it seemed, was full of stagnant water, where the fishmen went to sleep.

Then, of course, she got scolded for dragging water onto the deck and had to sweep it again.

Strangely enough, it was Prince Tygra who sought her out as she ungraciously scrubbed the planks until they shone.

"Hi," he said, giving no indication that he'd been seasick just an hour before. He pointed skyward. "I'm sure you've noticed my darling little brother is up there playing mad sea pirate."

Felline looked up at the crow's nest. From below, she couldn't see Captain Tunar or Lion-O, but she nodded, shoulders slumped. She didn't like this situation any more than Cheetara did, but what choice did they have? It wasn't like she could go up there and drag her king down like a mother cat and her wayward cub.

"Well, listen." Tygra scrubbed the back of his head, not quite looking at her. "We all know that thing is going to come back before we find a way off this tub or convince my brother that we don't belong here. What I need to know, right now, is if you are going to be a help or a hindrance. Can you fight?"

Ears easing back, she shook her head in reply.

"Yeah, didn't think so," he said in half a groan, a soldier stuck with the unenviable task of turning a dullard into something serviceable. "You seem like a noble's daughter to me. I've seen plenty of them to know."

That was true. Being a prince, he would. And then, she realized, he would probably know her father. She stared up at him, hope and fear warring in her chest, the need to _know_ nearly strangling her. Here was a source of information. Perhaps of closure.

Would Prince Tygra know of her father's fate? Because if the answer was yes, he might know of Bastien's fate, too.

But Prince Tygra was still speaking, obviously aggravated. "Frankly, you're not what I'd choose to take into a battle. No offense, but this isn't the place for someone like you."

Felline didn't appreciate his tone. Her upbringing, if it was a fault to put to anyone, belonged on the shoulders of their fallen society.

She wouldn't ask him about Commander Snow. Certainly not about Bastien. Like Lepra, these were people dear to her. She missed them so much, and, although she would never admit it aloud, she believed all three to be dead. Their names would mean nothing to this spoiled prince. She rested a paw on her rifle – not to draw it, but to draw attention to it.

He noticed, rubbing his white jaw thoughtfully. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that. See these?"

With a glance around to make sure there were no fishmen nearby, he led the way to one of the unoccupied gun turrets on the deck.

"Laser cannons," he told her, laying his big paw flat on the blue steel blister of the turret. "There's power driving this ship. Maybe we could borrow some of it."

Felline watched with interest, her irritation forgotten, as he produced a pair of tools from a pocket of his fatigues – screwdrivers, she thought Jorma had called them – and began to remove one of the rusted steel panels with deft white fingers. When he had a wide enough gap, she was quick to lend her smaller paws, searching around inside the apparatus by feel for a jack or a port similar to those in the energy pack for her rifle.

Just then, with a crack and rumble, a bolt of lightning struck the sandsea. Menacing gray clouds piled up faster than Felline could believe, turning the sea and the sky the purple-black of a bruise. Lightning continued to paint the air blinding white.

She and Tygra reflexively looked up as Lion-O shouted, "I see it! There! A quarter arc of the sun's journey straight ahead."

Felline didn't need to see with her eyes to know that more trouble than the storm was brewing. She could hear them, the hungry screams of the ramlak.

"Quit floppin' around, ya lazy lumps!" Captain Tunar shouted. "The chase is on!"

This was no time for hesitating. She snatched a screwdriver from Prince Tygra and set to the panel, determined to get it open and find what she needed before those long fingers of pure electricity found and fried her. Rust flaked off in her fur, screws – some sheared clean in half – pinged on the deck, and then she wrenched the panel free with a groan of old metal. Tygra smirked at her, not altogether kindly, drew his pistol and his blue, three tailed whip, and ran forward, where the crew was gathering with more of their spear guns.

"Thunderstorm just blew in ahead!" The first mate's voice floated on the streaming wind, always just a little confused, a little slow. Felline spat her hair out of her mouth, testing colored wires she pulled loose one at a time. Was he just _now_ figuring that out? The thunder strikes were coming faster and louder, and sand sprayed across the decks each time the ship drove into a trough in the rising waves. The first mate innocently added, "Advise we sail around it!"

"And lose the ramlak's trail?" Captain Tunar demanded in a tone that brooked no argument. "Full speed ahead!"

"But Cap'n, we'll never survive!" the first mate wailed.

"The only thing that's not surviving is the ramlak," Lion-O shouted.

He ran right past Felline, who was sitting with her back to the gun turret and had just inserted a jack into a socket on her rifle. The rifle woke up with a mechanical squeal, all of its urgent red lights flashing. Not seeing her, Lion-O jumped up to the wheelhouse.

"Into the storm we go!" he yelled, sounding as crazed as the fishman captain.

* * *

_**A/N: **Greetings and Salutations, Dear Readers!_

_Wow, um . . . My other fanfics are based on video games. Holy moly cheese on a cracker, but a TV episode takes FOREVER when it's put in words! And I'm even cutting stuff out! LOL! Talk about a learning experience . . ._

_A note on last chapter - well, a note on Felline's muteness: **Naiko20** had an excellent question, which was, [since she's well educated why doesn't she just write down what she wants to say?] I think this question deserves to be answered by the story itself, rather than just by me blustering out an answer in the author's notes. As of now, two chapters have been changed. But I'll summarize it here so nobody has to go digging for it, hee. 1. When Felline is with Jorma, she actually doesn't have any words inside of her, so it isn't just her voice that's gone missing. The only thing I changed was the interaction over Lightning's name - Jorma just decided to name the horse and Felline sees no reason to correct him. 2. By the time she meets up with the other cats, her words have indeed come back. She COULD write what she wants to say, but she's a typical teenager and doesn't WANT to. They're strangers, and she doesn't think that they would feel what they should over her loss in Lepra. :) Paraphrased. As this chapter has started to show, her thoughts regarding Lion-O are less than flattering (hee) and, well, she was raised not to be rude to her king. So for now, she's still a mute._

_I hope all that made sense. I'm also hoping I accurately conveyed the ideas in the revamped chapters!_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Naiko20 **(Thanks again! *huggle*), **Heart of the Demons** (I shall try. :3 Thanks for the review!), **Blacktiger93 **(YAY, thank you! I actually meant this chapter to be longer in terms of more happening, but at least Felline has gained some agency here. She can't rely on everybody else forever, right?!), **Artemis Zodiac** (Awesome suggestion! It has been used and the chapter changed to reflect it. Thanks!), **KelseyAlicia** (Excellent! I'm very happy to see you say that about her, thank you), **Night Whisperer** (Heehee, enjoyable is high praise, considering it was all old territory. I know it was, and I'm a little ashamed of it, but I'm glad you liked what Felline brought to the party. Thanks!), and **Seeds of Destruction** (Hahaha, I know, I know. *bows head in shame* Thanks for reviewing it anyway. I love to know there's someone on the other end of the line). __To all of you, one more time, with feeling: THANK YOU! :3_

_Gratefully Yours,_

_Anne_


	15. Keep No More Cats, part five

"Lion-O!" Tygra shouted. "This is madness! What are you doing?"

"Not letting anything stand in my way," Lion-O shouted back harshly. "Not a storm, _not_ you!"

If Tygra responded, Felline didn't hear it. The wind whistled and shrieked like something alive. Hardly daring to breathe, she held her rifle in both paws, willing the red lights to calm, to turn green, while all the wires she'd yanked loose snarled into crackling, multicolored knots. A wave of liquid sand burst over the railing and rolled over her, leaving her coughing and spluttering on the fine particles.

Cheetara's high, feminine voice pierced the maelstrom. "Captain, please! The ship won't survive long in this storm!"

Then Felline screamed, her own voice lost to the wind, and sprawled on the deck. A chunk of detritus slammed into the gun turret blister and whipped away, shearing the air inches from her head. Like enormous hailstones, more chunks of metal and rock pounded the deck, leaving dents and gaping holes in the already unstable vessel.

Shaking with the sudden adrenaline rush, Felline pulled herself upright. Her rifle was flashing yellow.

Captain Tunar climbed into the turret and took the seat and the controls. He did something that caused the mechanism inside to whine to life. With a flare of purple light that burned her eyes, it sent a powerful _zap_ through Felline's body. She went rigid for uncountable time and then was blown backward with a feeling like a thousand claws had hooked themselves into her bones and then ripped free.

The railing brought her up short under her armpit. She hung on, one leg dangling over the edge, waiting for her heart to slow and the pain in her ribs to subside.

Expression fierce, Captain Tunar fired the massive cannon, sending blue-green spheres hurtling through the dry hurricane, blasting the metal and rock chunks apart before they reached his ship. Above him, high in the ruined rigging, Lion-O dug in his toe claws and was doing much the same thing in order to protect the remains of the sails. The Sword of Omens easily cut through the detritus with each two handed swing.

Still trying to catch her breath from the electric shock, Felline watched him up there. She had to admit, it was an impressive feat of strength. He was grinning, a wild light in his blue eyes.

Then one of the halved chunks came right for her.

With a snarl, Felline brought the rifle up and fired. The bolt came out green-white, and the chunk dissolved into dust.

"Isn't it exhilaratin'?" Captain Tunar roared, and burst into laughter. He continued firing.

Felline yanked the jack out of the rifle's socket and flung it from her, as if speed could keep her from getting shocked again. It didn't hurt her, however, and she noticed that the tangle of wires had burst out of the panel, leaving a smoking black scar behind. She stared at it worriedly, wondering if she'd severely damaged the turret, half hoping it would explode and take that fish brained captain with it. Still, her rifle's charge readout was showing solid green across the board. She took it and ran.

"Don't forget to save some for the ramlak!" Lion-O screamed.

She squinted up at him. That was it. The Lord of the ThunderCats had lost his mind. She wondered what sort of poison Koinelius Tunar had passed on through his large, webby hands.

She needed to find a place to hole up. Remembering Snarf, she headed for the cargo containers.

The gun turret did eventually stop working, sort of fizzling out under the captain. He leapt off it, nimbly for a guy with one leg, and stared hard at the heart of the storm. Lightning continually struck the sandsea dead ahead.

And then something gigantic curled out of the waves. Just for a moment. Just a taste. Tentacles three times the size of those they'd already seen, a body that resembled the closed bud of a flower easily matching the ship pound for pound. What looked like stamen wriggled out of the top, licking the air like pointed maroon tongues.

"It's surfacing! Now's our chance!"

The fishmen stared in petrified horror, their spear guns armed but not aimed. A tentacle whipped aboard and swept a bunch of them aside.

Felline peered out from her hiding place, lying flat on her belly, rifle propped in front of her eyes. Obviously still trapped in some sort of battle lust, Lion-O fired a harpoon at the creature but had the gun tugged out of his paws at once. After that, he went into the skirmish headlong, laying about with the Sword of Omens. Water and tentacle pieces splashed onto the deck.

It quickly became a battle for survival. As if determined to break its tormentor into unidentifiable pieces, the ramlak coiled its tentacles around every bit of the groaning ship it could and began to squeeze. Fishmen sailors fired their own spear guns, but some were pulled overboard, and none hurt the creature.

Felline sniped at the tentacles that passed near her where she had wedged herself between the cargo containers. Fully charged, the rifle packed enough punch to sever the tentacles just as well as the Sword. She felt very alone in the midst of all the chaos.

It was impossible to hear anything over all of the noise, except for Tunar's rough voice from the seat of a second gun turret: "Take down the arms! Then we go for the head!"

A sound strategy, but easier said than done. The fishmen were trying, with long harpoons, to fend off the tentacles. The overstressed ship groaned and cracked like melting ice. Felline shot one vine-like tentacle swooping for Lion-O. He didn't notice, but she didn't care. She just hoped the ship would hold together.

The ramlak seemed to be trying to climb aboard. Its giant, petal wrapped body was pressed against the starboard side, its tentacles looped amidships. Felline turned her shots on it, but none could penetrate its skin.

It screamed in a horrible parody of triumph.

Like a child crushing a nut shell between its paws, the ramlak snapped the ship in two. Brackish water and fishmen fell, crying out in fear. Felline managed to hang on to the bucking planks until the ramlak lifted the crippled ship onto its side, which sent her and the bulky cargo boxes careening down a cracking, splintering slide, right into the sandsea.

She kicked with all of her might, swimming for the surface, but the sandsea wasn't like the lakes of her home. It was heavier, thicker, and she was less buoyant in its currents. Sand clogged her fur, dragging her down.

Quickly running out of air, she unsnapped the clasps of her borrowed cloak and twisted away from it, trying not to get wrapped up in it like a gruesome present. That was better, but by no means enough. Ditching the rifle was her next option. She hesitated to do so. And began to sink.

Someone grabbed her and hauled her into the supercharged air. Hacking up sand, she clung to her rescuer. It was a fishman, webbed feet and fanned tail propelling them effortlessly through the liquid sand. The fishman hefted her onto a floating bit of wreckage, where others, including Cheetara, were clinging. Using her staff, the cleric helped fish out Tygra, the kittens, and more of the crew.

Incredibly, Felline could still hear Tunar shrieking. "_Come on, beast! For hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee_!" The ramlak howled and began to submerge, but Tunar was laughing hysterically. "You won't slip away this time! I've gotcha now!"

His maniacal laughter abruptly stopped. So, too, did the ramlak's screams. The monster had folded up its outer leaves and disappeared into the sea, its tentacles slowly sinking, taking the mad fishman with it. Although far from silent, the sea seemed strangely empty and quiet with them gone.

"Everyone!" Lion-O bellowed from a cluster of broken masts. "Over here!"

He seemed to have regained his senses, waving people closer to his little haven, concerned for someone other than himself for the first time since this whole adventure began. Felline kicked with fishmen on either side of her, pushing their makeshift raft over to the redheaded lion. Tygra, Snarf on his shoulder, hopped up by his brother first, and then helped her and Cheetara up. This time, she shook herself to get rid of the clinging sand without hesitation.

Lion-O waited until they were more or less stable, and then he fired the last spear gun at the dismembered prow, bobbing some distance away. The barb bit true.

Alone, Lion-O began to haul the prow closer.

"_Pull_, Lion-O, you've got it!" WilyKit cheered.

Whether he did or not, Felline couldn't just stand there and watch. She grasped a handful of rope and hauled with him, their paws overlapping, white and cream and white again. Being so small and relatively weak, she wasn't entirely positive she was helping, but it was better than doing nothing.

He didn't thank her. He didn't acknowledge her at all.

Felline let it pass. The tormented look on his face said quite enough.

..::~*~::..

"You steered us into quite a storm, Lion-O," Cheetara chided, but she was smiling.

The storm had moved on, the lightning more of a show than a danger, and the ThunderCats were gathered on the slanted deck of the ship's prow. Relieved that the kittens were safe, Felline offered Kit her paw, and the little she-cat swung their joined paws back and forth.

"I lost sight of what's important," Lion-O said softly to his brother and Cheetara. He bowed his head. "And for that I'm –"

He never finished. The ramlak burst out of the sandsea, stamens bending directly for the cats, and two long, elastic tongues unrolled from the center mouth.

_Snyarf_! Snarf cried, covering his eyes with his tiny paws.

The tongues snatched up Lion-O, who grunted in surprise.

"No!" Cheetara cried, but she missed as the ramlak reeled him in.

"Lion-O!" Tygra shouted.

"You give him back, you slimy sack of tentacles!" Kat yelled, waving his fists. Felline grabbed him before he fell into the sea.

They all stared, horrorstruck, as the ramlak devoured Lion-O and then bent forward again. The kittens screamed. There was nowhere to run.

And then the creature stopped. It howled again, questioning.

A bright blue star appeared on its bulbous side. The star grew, glowing brighter, and then the Sword of Omens burst through the impervious skin. In a gout of pure, clear water, Lion-O was expelled from the creature.

Like an overripe cherry, the ramlak burst apart, great geysers of water shooting out of it. The water just kept coming. Lighter than the sandsea, it stayed on top rather than sinking away, and as the ramlak shriveled, the pool of refreshing blue grew. It rained down on everyone, drenching them all. After a stunned moment, every fishman began celebrating.

"_We got our water back_!"

Carefully, Tygra lowered himself to the water, using both feet and one paw to keep his balance on the sloping deck. Grasping his brother's wrist, he levered Lion-O aboard. Cheetara was quick to help them.

That was when Lion-O looked up, a proud grin baring his fangs.

His smile froze. His blue eyes widened.

Tygra and Cheetara turned around, puzzled.

Felline saw it in their faces. Without her cloak, and sopping wet, there was no doubt that she was no cub. She pushed her tangled hair out of her eyes and glared at them, defiantly, daring them to say something.

Cheetara recovered first. She elbowed Tygra out of the way and jerked Lion-O upright. She then offered Felline a smile.

Cheetara was so much like Lepra sometimes, hyper conscious of the feelings of those around her, wise and mature. Cautiously, Felline returned the smile. It felt weird, but she held it as long as she could.

..::~*~::..

On the shore of the sandsea, Felline, Tygra, and Cheetara finished lashing down all of the supplies provided by the fishmen in the airboat also gifted to them. The storm had unfortunately washed away her pack, but the fishmen had been generous.

WilyKat and WilyKit hung over one of the pontoons, watching Lion-O and Tunar's erstwhile first mate shake hands.

"We'd better get moving before the sun sets," Tygra called.

Lion-O turned and smiled, the first stars of evening lighting the sky beyond him.

"So what orders do you have for your crew?" Cheetara asked gently.

The young king lost his smile. He deliberated a moment, and then said, "Set our course for the Book of Omens."

"Aye, aye, Captain." She saluted him, relief making her smile brilliant.

Tygra smirked. "And what do we do with these stowaways?" he drawled.

Kit and Kat curled their paws under their chins, meowing as cutely as they could. Sincerely wishing she still had her cloak, Felline hunched over a rucksack, tightening the drawstring. For all her pretending otherwise, what answer Lion-O gave meant a great deal to her. Her ears were tilted toward shore. Waiting.

"I said I'm not going to babysit. It's a good thing they've proven they can take care of themselves."

"Yahoo!" the kittens chorused, and Felline let out the breath she'd been holding. She'd earned a place among her own kind. And that was good enough.

Tygra started up the airboat engines and Lion-O jumped aboard. He was looking at Felline. She bristled. _What_?

"What's your name, anyway?" he asked, genuinely curious.

She just looked at him. Stink Eye, full power.

He cleared his throat and looked away.

Satisfied, Felline sat and let the wind push her hair off her face. She'd earned her place, but that didn't mean she was ready to talk. And he was just going to have to deal with that.

* * *

_**A/N: **Hello, my friends! How are you today?_

_This is the last one! Five parts to tell one episode. Not a good precedent, lmao. In all honesty, though, I'm having loads of fun with this. I hope you are, too._

_Ohmigosh, I had to take some liberties with this chapter. I personally never liked the part when everyone falls into the sandsea. Lion-O says something like, "They'll all drown!" and yet everyone has no problem swimming around. Not the fish, and not the cats. So, wut? I decided to make it harder to stay afloat because it makes more sense to me. Just sayin'._

_Reviewer Thanks! **Darwin **(Glad to see you back, chica! I had hoped her prejudice came across okay. Thanks for reviewing!), **Heart of the Demons** (Excellent, glad you liked that! I personally loved when the show brought back the whole eye-glow supersoldier summons. I'm looking forward to playing with that later, hee. Thank you for reviewing so faithfully!), **Night Whisperer **(I hope I've delivered! Thanks again for coming back to review! :3), **Blacktiger93** (Yes, I'm right there with you . . . I haven't decided yet how she handles that, but I am psyching myself up for the challenge of them getting tired of her silence. Thanks for reviewing! :3), **Naiko20** (EXACTLY. Watching that episode for the first time was hard! LOL! It was fun to play with, too. :3. Thanks for the review!), and **Seeds of Destruction** (Thank you very much!)._

_Today marks the end of a successful day of NaNo. The halfway point is passed, and I've managed to catch up after my weekend of the flu bug from hell. Yay, me!_

_Random thought: This is stupid, but I was super sad I could never figure out a way for Felline to see the ship properly from the outside. I LOVE how it's designed like a narwhal. Sadness._

_Forever Grateful to Her Readers, Without Whom this Story Would Have No Point,_

_Anne_


	16. The Cat May Look at a King, part one

_Snyar snyar_, Snarf said.

The little red petcat struggled up the tree, having some trouble with his rounded tummy, and then sat down next to Felline on her branch. The night was quiet and serene, the star flecked sky clear and cold. After leaving the sandsea, they'd had a much better time of catching dinner in the form of fish, which, roasted over their nightly campfires, were the perfect end to their days of travel in the high country.

Tonight, Felline had simply needed to get _away_. She missed her sister, and wished her grief wouldn't keep striking her in weird places – while burying a fish skeleton in the ashes, for instance, or pinning the sides of her hair back, or sitting thinking about nothing, absolutely nothing! and it would catch her hard in the ribs, leaving her gasping over the pain. Fighting to hide it from her companions made it worse, sometimes. Her last memories of Snow weren't good, but she missed him, too. She missed the man who would carry her and her sister around on his broad shoulders, who had taught her to string a bow and nock an arrow, who had tried, and failed, to give them better lives. He was her father. Nothing would ever change that.

Shamefully, she was already forgetting what Bastien's voice had sounded like. And that, too, carried its own special grief.

Sadly, Felline smiled at Snarf and reached over to scratch the yellow tuft between his overlarge ears. She didn't mind his company. If anyone, she was tempted to talk to Snarf. He couldn't talk back, exactly, but he seemed to care how others were feeling.

_Nyar_? he queried, big green eyes shining in the moonlight.

She almost answered. It was terribly lonely to be silent when she was no longer technically alone. But she just couldn't do it. WilyKat and WilyKit were so young – right then, she heard Kat yelling in a singsong, "WilyKit loves a froo-oog, WilyKit loves a froo-oog!" and his sister furiously shouting, "No, I _don't_! You dared me!"

Amused, she flicked an ear. What was that about?

_Nyah_, Snarf said with something very like a shrug, and she giggled. He was right. The twins were never quiet for more than five minutes, but as long as their pranks were limited to each other, it was nothing to worry about. Probably.

Felline stood and offered her shoulder to Snarf. He scrambled up, dainty claws hooked in her thick fur, and then she was off the branch and running.

The further she got from camp, the more the forest came alive. It was mostly evergreen here, towering, shaggy behemoths that left huge circles of soft brown needles under their lowest branches. The grass and mulch felt wonderful to her feet, the fragrant night air invigorating. Clouds of lightning bugs broke apart and eddied in her wake, and nocturnal creatures called out from the trees, the grass, and the dirt itself. Night blooming flowers tilted pale yellow, lavender, and white petals for Cheshire's obscured light.

This wasn't Foret, and it wasn't Thundera, but out here, she could cry without worrying about explaining herself.

Was it wrong that, surrounded by her own species, she still needed out? Time alone, space to breathe? She slowed, panting slightly, and then boosted herself into another tree, where she could look out over the swift, clean river that conveniently meandered the same direction as they – toward the Book of Omens.

She brought her legs to her chest, hugged them, and rested her chin on her knees. Tygra. Cheetara. Lion-O. Would these people have ever been her friends, if things had been different? If Thundera had never fallen, if Commander Snow had presented his daughters at court as he had planned? She didn't think so. The royal sons didn't even seem to like each other, never mind an outsider, forcing Cheetara, the cat they did know, into the middle of their squabbles.

It hadn't taken Felline long to observe that both men were attracted to Cheetara.

Felline stretched out, swinging her feet over the ground fifty feet below. Talk about an unenviable position to be in. Did Cheetara ever feel the need to run away?

She suspected that she would never learn if Cheetara was aware of the growing romantic rivalry between Tygra and Lion-O, or if the cleric returned the feelings of either one. Felline well knew what it meant to be a woman, capable of keeping great secrets from the world. Cheetara had her pick of two fine toms, if she chose to acknowledge them. It was none of her business.

Felline scrunched up her nose. How could she insert herself into that? Who would want to? As a matter of fact, she'd left Cheetara and Lion-O sitting cozily by the fire, close enough to feel each other's body heat, chatting too quietly for her to hear what they were saying.

So, like Tygra, she'd taken a walk.

Thinking of Tygra, she groaned. It wasn't like he was any easier to be around. He was so _big_. Not physically – yes, that, too, but his mere _presence_ was so _stifling_.

Just that morning, the brothers had almost come to blows – again – over some question of judgment and a perceived insult. Felline personally tended to agree with Tygra. As far as she was concerned, he was a natural born leader, charismatic, intelligent, and fearless. She could understand why most Thunderians had thought he should be the next king. What was Lion-O to him? A cub bumbling around in the dark, acting on impulse rather than sound decision making. More than once, he'd arbitrarily decided something simply because it was the opposite of what Tygra had wanted to do.

Those were the times she found it hardest to hold her tongue. The urge to just . . . just . . . _smack_ that boy nearly made her wild inside. He was a spoiled brat. Oblivious. Irritating. Willfully stupid. Oh, the times she'd been about to let him have it –!

But no one, not even Tygra, could disobey the king. Felline could no more talk back to Lion-O than Snarf could sing the national anthem.

Suddenly, Snarf pulled himself up the side of her face, front paws planted on top of her head. _Snyar_?

She put her hand on his side, felt him trembling, and patted him. _What is it_?

For an answer, he bounded off her shoulder and hightailed it back to camp.

Shocked by the abrupt absence of his warm, furry weight, Felline stared after him, and then looked back. She saw nothing, but what she heard sent shivers down her spine. Tail out for balance, she climbed higher and popped out of the bendy, topmost branches of the spicy scented evergreen.

What she saw made her shinny down the tree so fast she burst out the bottom in a shower of twigs and needles, one elbow scraped up and bleeding.

She hopped around for a minute, wincing, and then sprinted after Snarf as if she had a dog on her heels.

In reality, it was the lizard army.

She arrived in time to see tubby little Snarf rocket out of the trees with a terrified _Snyarf_! and plaster himself right to his master's face, knocking the Lord of the ThunderCats flat on his back in the dirt.

Unperturbed, Cheetara watched as Lion-O sat up, Snarf's claws tangled in his mane, and glared at Felline. "Are you _kidding_ me? _Now_? This better be very important."

So, only a life or death situation was important enough to interrupt his flirting with Cheetara. Check.

Snarf hopped into his lap and grabbed the front of his armor, yanking on it – _narf narf narf_ – to make Lion-O get up. Felline stared at them, her tail lashing her legs, ears flat back. Cheetara met her eye; understanding flashed between them, and then the cleric disappeared in a rush of air. Much slower, Felline followed her up the nearest tree, pointing toward the southwest once she gained the top.

It wasn't long before the others joined her and Cheetara. Every feline face was grim as they surveyed the approaching danger. The cluster of bluish artificial lights was impossible to miss, like a blemish on the velvety forest, brighter than the moons above. Felline had seen the giant warmechs and their buzz saws carving a path through the trees, and she pointed it out now.

"It's the entire lizard army," Cheetara diagnosed. She turned to her left, claws extending as she flexed her fingers, obviously remembering how Lion-O had behaved on the sandsea. "Just say the word, Lion-O."

But Lion-O didn't say anything. Leaning around the cleric, Felline saw him glance down at the Gauntlet, but she couldn't see his expression. "No," he said at last. "If we stay here, we die."

Felline felt rather than heard the twins sigh shakily. She let one out herself. For once, she agreed with his choice. They would not survive a head on battle with that many lizards and their giant machines. And in spite of everything, _because_ of everything, she really didn't want to die.

Lion-O stood up, but Tygra immediately got to his feet, too. "ThunderCats do _not_ retreat," he said loudly.

Appalled, Felline stared at him.

"With a situation this hopeless I'll make an exception," Lion-O snapped.

"Hope comes from action," Tygra shot back furiously. "Isn't that what Father taught us?"

"_And what happened to him_?" Lion-O snarled. The moonlight silvered his blue eyes, the pupils constricted to thin black strips. "Now, come on."

He returned to the ground long enough to stamp out the fire and bury it. The rest of them gathered up their supplies while he did. Then, without another word, the cats silently navigated through the trees, leaping from branch to branch, a few fallen needles the only sign of their passing. The kittens, tired and frightened, lagged behind, but Felline waited for them to catch up, herding them ahead of her. Every passing minute brought the screech of saws and the cracking, rumbling sounds of trees falling. Closer. And closer.

They didn't stop until they saw a faint white glow up ahead. It was a briar, a dome of twisted thorns and dead, ropy vines shining white under the moons. It looked large enough to swallow all of Thundera whole, rising higher than even the majestic evergreens.

"They won't be able to follow us in there," Lion-O said, pleased.

Tygra, predictably, was not. "You're asking us to, what," he challenged, "hide among the brambles waiting for the lizards to just go away? This is not how we're going to win this war."

_Win the war_? Felline thought incredulously. She'd assumed they were more concerned with staying alive long enough to claim the Book of Omens and whatever knowledge it could give them than in eradicating lizards off the face of Third Earth.

Lion-O gave him an icy look. "I'm not asking," he said with a mock purr, and went on ahead.

Felline jumped after him at once, keen to put as much distance between herself and the lizards as she could. The kittens and Cheetara were right behind her.

"You may be king," Tygra called, some of his fire quenched, "but I'm still older than you!"

Lion-O didn't bother to respond to that. He waited for all of them, a stone faced Tygra in the lead with pistol drawn, to enter the thorny briar ahead of him before he, too, passed from moonlight to shadow.

* * *

_**A/N: **Greetings and Salutations! My apologies for taking so long to update. I had the hardest time deciding how to start this chapter and where in the story to put it. At first, I didn't want to include this episode at all, but I realized that the beginning and the end both have some incredible canon development. I shall skip the middle portion for the reason that Felline could not possibly add to, embellish, or otherwise improve the very touching tale of Emrick. (I loved this ep, can you tell?) So, next chapter will pick up at the end, skipping Emrick's life. Just to warn you. It was a hard decision to make, mainly because I adored how lighthearted all of the cats, but especially Lion-O, got to be in this little interlude. C'est la vie!_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Heart of the Demons **(D'aw, thank you!), **Naiko20** (hahahaha! Yeah, about like that. :3), **Blacktiger93 **(*giggle* I have this cat who is a master of Stink Eye, no lie. She is Felline's inspiration!), **Night Whisperer** (Thank you so much!), **KelseyAlicia** (Glad to see you're sticking around! Thank you!), **randomfangirl** (Welcome! It really made my day to see a new face. :3), **Seeds of Destruction** (Here you go!), **Artemis zodiac** (I'm always so happy to see you back! :3 So, let's see, I've started working her in with Tygra - they don't like each other - Cheetara - they don't know what to think of each other but sometimes being girls together is enough - the kittens - big sis! - and Snarf - really, I just want to cuddle Snarf. Hehe. I guess Lion-O is the only one left! Dun dun dunnnn!), and **Darwin** (THREE reviews! AWESOME POSSUM! Oh, not that it's important, but "croud" is a word of Welsh origin, pronounced "croothe," and it just means "crowd." I got tired of typing "crowd," although I admit that was probably pretentious. LOL). Thank you, one and all, for reviewing! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!_

_Blacktiger93, this chapter is dedicated to you. :3 Thanks for the motivation!_

_Um, I think that's it. Once again, I hope you're enjoying my little crackfic._

_Anne_


	17. The Cat May Look at a King, part two

_This has been the longest day ever_, Felline thought tiredly. She passed a paw over her eyes. To walk with the petalars, the plantlike inhabitants of the briar, meant to walk hand in hand with mortality. She knew she would not have been able to handle another hour with the tiny, fragile people, watching them grow from tiny seedlings to adults, fall in old age, and wither away in a matter of hours. So many lives, gone. Peacefully. Painlessly. But gone.

It may have been natural for the petalars, but for her, it was too much in too short a time.

"So what now?" Tygra asked, subdued now that the last of the petalars had drifted out of sight on the roaring updrafts of heat, their songs fading in the night. WilyKit held the last, achingly sweet notes on her flupe, her eyes closed.

"We can try to find another way out of this briar," Cheetara said.

The briarwood was tough, but could not stand against the growing forest fire, which painted them all in shifting shades of orange. Glowing embers hissed as they discovered the dry ground. Kit hissed as she accidentally stepped on one. She tucked her flupe back in its pouch.

"Retreat?" Lion-O asked, his back to them. He turned away from the flames. The ghost of his little petalar friend Emrick haunted his eyes. Of all of them, the philosophy of the gentle creatures had hit him the hardest, completely changed his way of thinking. "ThunderCats never retreat. I say we face the lizards. And hope for the best."

He smiled, and Felline was struck by the sincerity in his face. He wasn't so plain, actually, not when he smiled like that. She looked away.

"We're all leaves passing in the wind," he said. "Here and then gone. But while we're here, we live to the fullest!"

With that, he drew the Sword of Omens and woke it with his call. The Sword growled, extending to its full length, turning blue lightning red, and then the Eye of Thundera sent up a beacon into the night sky.

Whatever Felline might have been thinking blanked out, wiped clean by the cat's head shining red against the moon. She could feel it, its pull growing in her chest, strength she didn't know she had filling her entire body.

If the lizards were paying attention, they would know that death was coming for them.

When Lion-O charged toward the source of the fire, she and the other cats followed, fierce and focused as hunters. There was no hesitation. No fear. No doubt. And the Sword glowed with eerie blue light, a shooting star, leading them forward.

At first, they made real headway. They burst out of the burning brambles, Lion-O cutting a path through vines and lizards alike. Felline and Tygra split off, flanking the others, picking off foot soldiers one at a time, while Cheetara dove straight in, staff whistling in the wind. Cat to lizard, they might have won. However, the warmech pilots were quick to come to the defense of their comrades. Laser blasts sent dirt and rocks flying in Felline's face, blinding her. She backed off, coughing, scrubbing at the grit in her eyes, and stopped only when she felt the kittens' backs pressing against hers.

Tygra was at her shoulder, Lion-O guarding her other side. They were surrounded.

"There are too many of them," Lion-O said. Defeat darkened his voice.

"Father would have been proud of your bravery, Lion-O," Tygra declared.

He grinned over his shoulder. "A glory I'm honored to share with all of you."

"My service to the crown has always been a cherished privilege," Cheetara said warmly.

Eyes streaming, Felline said nothing. She could feel WilyKat trembling against her hip, although the kitten held his flink at the ready. Was that it, then? They all say their goodbyes, and lay down to die?

The warmechs, although no longer attacking, had formed a ring and were closing in, the lizards on foot filling in the gaps, bladed rifles aimed and ready to fire.

A rumbling noise had been growing for the last few minutes, but Felline assumed that was the sound of the warmechs. That is, until one of them exploded and toppled forward, felled by an orange blast from behind.

Something huge and angry tore up the ground in its approach, eyes glowing red in the night. It opened its mouth and vomited another laser beam that took out a second warmech; a third mech blew apart from a cannon blast. It was instant pandemonium. Screaming lizards fled in every direction, and Felline could hear a familiar, gurgling voice shouting, "I said hold your positions, you miserable cowards!"

The beast roared over the ground, gaining on the lizards and the cats trapped in the center.

"What is that thing?" Cheetara gasped. Then she shielded her face with an arm as one of the mechs managed to hit it head on with a green laser blast.

The ground erupted, and out of the column of dirt the machine leaped. Growling, engine revving and treads squealing, it landed, whipped around, and came at them again. It hurled a laser blast that disintegrated the offending mech.

The noise was deafening. It sounded like the fall of Thundera all over again, and Felline grimaced, raising her pitiful rifle. She needn't have bothered. The mechs had been demolished and removed from the field. General Slithe and his remaining lizards put their tails in the air and beat a hasty retreat.

Bemused, the cats watched them go. The unknown machine drove up to them, purring quietly to a stop, and they all uncertainly lowered their weapons. It was a sleek, low slung vehicle, the fenders over the treads fashioned like cat's paws. Felline watched it, sure that at any moment it was going to lurch forward and eat them.

"Hope that's on our side," WilyKit said in a faint, high voice.

Then, the angry red light in the eyes died. A panel in the top opened, and a figure emerged.

One last, foolish lizard suddenly sprang from the shadows, straight for its throat.

Quick as lightning, the figure lashed out with a pair of nunchucks, chain rattling, breaking the lizard's jaw. As the unconscious reptile fell back, the figure whipped his nunchucks around his massive shoulders and tucked one end under his arm. Then he simply stared down at them, his face lost in darkness, Leo's swirled disc framing his shaven head.

"Who are _you_?" Lion-O blurted.

In a bass growl, he said, "Name's Panthro."

..::~*~::..

General Panthro. General Grune had told the king he had died, yet here he was, in command of the monstrous machine he tersely called the ThunderTank. Aside from acknowledging he'd followed the Eye of Thundera beacon, he didn't seem interested in talking, and spent the hour until dawn using the tank to help the cats put out the fire, carting water from the river, chopping down trees, and building up an earthen bank to act as a fire brake.

The sun revealed a blackened landscape. The last flames whipped themselves out against the briarwood, and all that remained of the forest fire were tall, naked evergreens, wisps of acrid smoke, and soft, sooty ash underfoot.

Panthro emerged and, still without speaking, started crawling all over the tank, hammering, wrenching, screwing, and scowling. He didn't limit himself to the tools in their red metal box, either. At one point, he stood up and started kicking his heel into a dented panel, causing the whole tank to bounce on its treads.

No one dared approach the gray cat atop the tank, who looked as if he was grinding his teeth hard enough to shatter them.

"I thought he'd be smaller," Lion-O said, his voice cracking like that of a youth's.

"I thought he'd be less spiky," Cheetara said. She was eyeing the general's vest and gloves, studded with metal spikes.

Ignoring them, Panthro lifted the abused panel and released a billow of sparks, flames, and smoke into the morning air. He was easily as big as Grune had been, and covered with far more scars. Felline crouched on the ground, her arms around her knees, watching him work. She'd thought he was bald, but he had a ring of thick black hair knotted at the back of his head.

A sly grin spread across Tygra's face. "Go on, Lord of the ThunderCats," he drawled. "See if your loyal subject needs help fixing his tank. That is, unless you're scared."

Felline rolled her eyes, but Lion-O immediately stepped forward.

"H-hey, Panthro," he said, not quite pulling off friendly nonchalance.

"Go away," Panthro answered. He picked up a giant hammer and started bashing away. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

Lion-O processed that for about two seconds. "Oh, come on!" he burst out, sounding much more like himself. "You really just going to ignore us forever? What are you so grumpy about, anyway?"

Something made a little growling noise, and Felline's ears pricked forward.

"You're standing on my samoflange," Panthro rumbled.

"Ah!" At that, Lion-O performed a sort of hop-step and stumbled backward; each time his foot ground into the tool it elicited the funny little growl. Felline bit her lips on a giggle. "Sorry," he added, and cleared his throat before trying for that nonchalance again. "Look, m-maybe I can help. I–I've dabbled in a little tech myself."

The big cat stood, turning his one good eye on the young redhead. Bushy black sideburns cruised down his jaw. "The ThunderTank's out of thundrilium," he said at last. "Now I've gotta risk my hide to get more at the Cloud Peak Mine."

He pointed over their heads, and Felline stood up to get a better look. Cloud Peak was a white finger of rock that thrust straight up from the ground, so high that its peak was lost in wreaths of cloud. Thundrilium. Was that what powered her rifle? She turned, catching Lion-O's eye, and for once, he seemed to understand her. He nodded.

"If you're going after thundrilium, we're coming with you," he said quietly.

Panthro's scowl did not soften. "Let me put this as respectfully as I can," he said. "_No_."

"I _am_ the king now, General," Lion-O returned, bristling.

Lightly for a cat so large, Panthro hopped off the tank. "Fine. If you slow me down or get in my way, you're on your own. Any questions?"

"What's a samoflange?" Tygra asked.

..::~*~::..

Deciding who would stay and who would go should have been simple. It was not. They argued about it for a full fifteen minutes.

Panthro was going and wanted no part of any of them.

Lion-O was going and didn't care what anyone else thought.

Tygra, being the elder, was not going to be left behind.

Cheetara, being a cleric, didn't even ask permission.

Felline thought she had every right to accompany them.

The kittens didn't want to be left alone.

Yet, when WilyKit and WilyKat started yawning, it was decided the twins should remain with the ThunderTank. They'd all been awake for the better part of two days, after all.

This was fine with Felline, until Lion-O told her to stay with them.

She tried to go anyway, but Tygra grabbed her arm and steered her back, while Cheetara explained that the fewer of them infiltrated the mine, the better chance they had of succeeding. Mumm-Ra's army controlled the mine, didn't she know? The whole mountain was crawling with lizards and who knew what else. Not listening, Felline slapped Tygra away. _Don't ever touch me again_.

"Stay," he said sternly, glowering down at her. As if she was some _child_ to be ordered around. A half wit. A _dog_.

"Wait for us here," Lion-O told her and the kittens. "We'll be back before dark."

"If we don't all die first," Panthro corrected.

Fuming, Felline watched them go. Kit and Kat waved to Cheetara and Tygra, but she folded her arms obstinately across her chest. She could hear Panthro and Lion-O arguing.

"You sure have a motley crew on your hands, kid. It's a miracle you survived this long without any adult supervision."

"We've been doing just fine under my command."

"If you wanna stay alive you're gonna have to listen to _me_."

"_I'm_ the king now, Panthro."

Then the trees swallowed them up, and they were gone.

* * *

_**A/N: **It occurred to me while writing this that there are a LOT of introductory scenes. There have to be, of course, but it's another danger I hadn't counted on when all of my introductions took place well before the start of the show. Sigh. Still, I hope that I've done the episode justice, and let the others speak for themselves. At any rate, Felline is really starting to feel the pain of staying silent._

_Random thought: I am so immature. Seriously. While the "ThunderCats, ho!" bank is fun to watch, it's kind of a pain to write. And, I admit it, putting things like "the sword extended to its full length" into words makes it all rather suggestive, and I couldn't stop laughing. Oh, dear . . . I guess if I can't laugh at myself, then I have no right to ever laugh at anything again. Heh._

_What the f*ck is a samoflange?_

_Reviewer Thanks! Yay, it's my favorite part of the day! **Heart of the Demons **(Thank you!), **Blacktiger93 **(Know what I wondered? Why didn't anyone ever ask the kittens where they came from, not even me? It was so easy to assume they were strays and leave it at that. I'm playing around right now with who finally does say something, but so far I haven't settled on it . . . *ponders*), **Naiko20 **(Thanks for the vote of confidence!), **KelseyAlicia** (Thank you!), **Lionessa** (Welcome! It's always so much fun to see someone new. Thank you for the review!), **Night Whisperer** (ohmigosh, thank you so much for that! It's so wonderful that you're getting everything I want to convey! *dances happily*), **Hestia28** (Hooray, another new reviewer! Welcome, and thank you so much! And you know it, LOL!), and **Artemis zodiac** (For the first part, thank you! For the second part, already done. ;) That was one of the main drives that went into creating Felline). To all of you, my most heartfelt thanks. I appreciate you all so much!_

_Ever Yours,_

_Anne_


	18. The Cat May Look at a King, part three

Tired as she was, she could not get to sleep. Judging by the restless tossing and turning from the bunk above her, neither could WilyKit.

Sure enough, after thirty seconds or so of continued rustling, Kit's short ponytail appeared, then the top of her pink and purple striped head. A second later, Kat joined her over the edge of the bunk. They pressed their noses into the mattress, just their eyes showing big and yellow in the dim interior of the tank.

Felline sighed and sat up.

"We can't sleep," Kat said unnecessarily.

"Do you know any stories?" Kit asked hopefully.

Stories? Well, of course she did. Fairy tales, the kind everybody knew. She pushed her blanket off her legs and then grinned. Once upon a time, the ThunderTank would have been nothing but a fairy tale to her, and now here it was, larger than life. Kind of like its owner.

Humor fading, she cast a weary eye about. The interior of the tank was cramped and utilitarian. All by itself, the tank had somehow darkened its front windows and closed up the back doors, but Felline hadn't been able to figure out how to turn off the beady red lights that ran along the floor. One of them kept stabbing its tiny beam into her closed eyelids. Plus, there were only four narrow bunks, two that folded out from the upper walls and two that were formed from the rows of seats below those, which meant that when the others returned, several someones would be sleeping on the floor. Basically, it was a strange space full of strange, astringent smells. No wonder the kittens were restless.

Felline looked up at them, cocking one ear forward and one back. If I can't speak, how can I tell you a story?

Holding on to the edge, Kat did a flip off the bunk, landing lightly in front of her. "How come you don't talk?" he wanted to know.

Kit followed him, an identical flip. They wore noble's clothing, in spite of their tails, Kat in a belted brown and yellow tunic and short pants and Kit in a parti-colored skirt of separated panels that left her midriff bare. "We don't even know your name," she said, putting her paws on her hips.

"Are you a spy?"

"Do you work for Mumm-Ra?"

"Like Grune?"

"And the lizards?"

They fired off the questions one after another like a pair of seasoned interrogators, bending closer at the waist with each one, until they were nose to nose with Felline. Backed into the wall, paws up to defend herself, Felline suddenly started giggling. Was she afraid of a pair of children?

"Hey, what's so funny?" WilyKit pouted.

WilyKat went from suspicious to curious with a snap. "Hey, Sis, maybe she's under a spell!"

"Ooo! A spell!" Kit clapped her paws together in delight. "Like in 'The Sorcerer and the Lioness'?"

"Ew, not that kissy stuff," Kat said to his sister, screwing up his nose. "What kind of girl is so stupid that she gets stuffed in _painting_ for a hundred years?"

"She's not _stupid_ –"

"Is too! Without the Lion, she'd never wake up!"

"Well, that's because men are only good for one thing!"

Trying not to laugh, Felline reached forward and scooped Kat into the bunk with her, breaking up their fight before it could get started. She wondered if WilyKit knew exactly what it was she'd just said, or if she was simply repeating something she'd once heard. Settling WilyKat next to her, she held out her arm to Kit, inviting her to join them.

Kit did, eagerly, but she was frowning. "In the story, the Sorcerer traps the Lioness because he fell in love with her, but the Lion frees her by kissing her. Do you think if Lion-O kissed you, you'd be able to talk?"

Tucking the scratchy, drab blanket around the kittens, Felline scrunched up her own nose. She stuck her tongue out between her teeth and shook her head: _No way_.

Kat wasn't listening anymore. With a huff, he rolled onto his stomach. Small as they were, three occupants were still two too many for the bunk. Felline tried to hide a wince as sharp kitten elbows and knees jabbed her. Someone was squashing her tail.

"Lion-O's not a prince anymore, he's a king. And she's not a lioness," Kat said fretfully. He rubbed his eyes. "And I still can't sleep."

"Tell me more about El-Dara," Kit demanded.

"Yeah! El-Dara! Have you ever heard of it?" Kat asked, watching Felline as he pulled a tube of parchment out of his bag.

When she shook her head in the negative, he carefully unrolled the tattered sheet of parchment across the pillow. "El-Dara is the City of Treasure. Kit and I are going to find it, and live like lions for the rest of our lives. All we need is the map. . . ."

He talked for a long time, while he and his sister stared at the parchment with shining eyes. It seemed to be a page torn from a book, with a single ink drawing of a fantastical city and a palace of otherworldly architecture. Felline listened as WilyKat charmed them all with tales of the wealth – money and food – they would claim in El-Dara.

It was a nice dream. She smoothed WilyKat's brown and white hair, dared to give WilyKit a kiss on her small forehead, when the kittens' eyelids drooped and they finally fell asleep.

She wondered how they had come to be here. Orphans, most certainly, who had been living on their own for who knew how long, relying only on each other. The fact that they hadn't given in to despair said a lot for them.

She could learn from that.

In their sleep, they cuddled closer, bony knees and fluffy tails curled in, and soon enough, she let herself drift off to sleep as well.

..::~*~::..

The night was quiet.

Then the explosions began.

Felline couldn't believe how loudly a pair of kittens could snore. Groggily, she dragged herself headfirst out of the bunk and crawled on her hands and knees toward the back of the tank, which then obligingly opened for her with a hydraulic hiss.

She was hungry, but there wasn't any food and she didn't feel right leaving the kittens alone in order to go hunt. Instead, she clambered up the tank and sat cross-legged on the roof, her rifle across her lap.

Absently, she played with the silver ten, rubbing her thumb over the royal seal on the back. She flipped it into the air and caught it, toying with a superstitious game. Heads, the others would return with thundrilium. Tails, they would not.

Flip. Heads. She studied the profile stamped on it. No. It didn't really look like him.

Flip. Tails. What would she do if they failed? Where could she go, with two kittens in tow?

Flip. Heads. WilyKit was so cute. It felt like a thousand years since she, Felline, had believed in fairy tales. As if a kiss could solve anybody's problems.

Flip. Heads again. It wasn't as though he was like the princes in the tales, anyway. He was such a child, headstrong and irritating.

Flip. Tails. No, that was no good. They were coming back.

Flip. Heads. Still, there was something about him. Maybe . . . maybe it was too quiet when he was gone. Not that he ever talked to her.

Flip. Tails. Besides, he had a crush on Cheetara.

Flip. Tails. It wasn't like she liked him, or anything. Wait, what – was she _blushing_?

Flustered, she flipped again.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a disturbance on the face of Cloud Peak. All the way up the mountain tower, puffs of pulverized rock spewed out, glittering in the double moonlight. A second later, she could hear the explosions, muffled by distance, and then the night stilled.

Felline glanced at the coin. Heads. She smiled.

Lying on her stomach, she pushed off the rifle's safety and settled in to wait.

..::~*~::..

By the time the others returned, two lizards lay dead under the morning sun, both shot clean through the heart. They'd been escaping from the crumbling mine, perhaps separated from the rest of their unit, and hadn't realized what they'd stumbled onto before Felline's bolts had found their scaly chests. From her vantage point atop the tank, Felline lifted her head and took her finger off the trigger when she recognized Panthro in the trees. Lion-O, Tygra, and Cheetara emerged and saw her when she stood up, waving in welcome.

One eyebrow raised, Panthro eyed the corpses but didn't say anything as he punched open a panel in the tank, produced a glittery, sharp edged, pink crystal from his sash, and dropped it in.

"Looks like things are taken care of here. I'm beat," Tygra said through a huge yawn. He put his arms overhead, stretched until his back popped, and then trudged into the tank.

"Wait, what about breakfast?" Lion-O called after him.

"Get it yourself," Tygra said, already out of sight.

Lion-O looked beseechingly at Cheetara, but the cleric put a gentle hand on his arm and said, "There will be time enough later. We should get some rest while we can."

Lion-O scowled.

"This one's yours," Panthro said when he joined Felline. He tossed a tiny chip of crystal at her. "Now clear off. I have work to do."

She made a face at his broad back. He wasn't going to scare _her_ off so easily. She put the crystal in a pocket and stayed right where she was. She was curious about this big, taciturn cat, and grateful that they'd not only found another survivor, but one who had so much more experience than they. If she was honest with herself, she felt much safer in his presence than she did with all of the others combined.

Several minutes passed in silence on her part, close-lipped industriousness on his. Then, he paused. Slowly turned his head, as if praying she wouldn't still be there.

She smiled.

He sighed, and then went back to his repairs. "They tell me you don't talk much."

For an answer, she scooted over to him and leaned close, ears pricked forward in interest, to watch his progress.

He glowered at her from beetled brows, his hammer poised high and unmoving. "What's the matter? Were you wounded?"

Felline thought about that for a long time, but eventually she shook her head and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. No, she wasn't wounded. Not exactly. But now that she'd been mute for so long, she didn't know if she could still talk. She was almost afraid to find out.

"Huh." He went back to work, his big fingers working deftly. All the while, he was muttering under his breath. Something about keeping a blasted foot off his samoflange. Suddenly, he threw the tool he'd been using down in disgust. "Hand me that spud wrench, will you?"

The what _what_? Felline turned to the dented metal toolbox, which was right next to her, and peered into it without touching anything. The last thing she needed was to bump his precious samoflange – whatever _that_ was – and make it growl at her.

Then she peeked at what he was doing. This was her chance to make friends. She could figure this out, she was sure. After a moment, her white hand darted into the box and came up with a long black tool that looked like it might fit. She held it out to him.

He stared at her with his mismatched, pouchy eyes, one milky gray and the other a clear brown, and then a corner of his wide mouth lifted in a smirk. He accepted the tool. "All right. You could be useful. Just keep the noise down. And hold this still."

Felline grinned at him. Together, they crouched over the panel, and she steadied a loose piece of metal for him.

"Hey, isn't anybody else hungry?" Lion-O said, popping up over the edge of the tank. The resemblance to WilyKat was powerful, right down to the big eyes, although his were that complicated shade of blue.

Guiltily, Felline looked away. She _was_ hungry. Maybe she should go out hunting –

"Sure," Panthro said to the spud wrench, and she started, amazed that he could hear what she had been thinking. "Why don't you go find us some eggs or something." He examined his handiwork, and then added, "Your Majesty."

Lion-O's expression of dismay almost made her feel bad for him. Almost. Felline tried – and failed – to hold in a breathy laugh as the Lord of the ThunderCats stalked off like a sulky child.

* * *

_**A/N: **Greetings and Salutations, Dear Readers! I hope, my fellow Americans, you all had a lovely holiday. :3_

_So many things going on in such a relatively quiet chapter! Here are some of the things running through my head:_

_1. The flashbacks in "Old Friends" are amazing and I love them, but I could not think of a way for Felline to "witness" them. I personally don't think Panthro actually stood around telling everybody his life story, but since later they all seem to know that Grune was the one who woke Mumm-Ra after following a voice only he could hear, I'm going to pretend that Panthro tells them later and we can assume Felline is on the same page at that point. There were also some really great lines (and Grune's ambition!) but, alas, I shall have to stay true to my OC and leave them in the show where they belong._

_2. Having the kittens share about El-Dara seemed natural to me, although I am aware that at this point it's a bit cliche. I hope you'll forgive me, I wasn't trying to cheat._

_3. Panthro was my favorite character in the original series, and I LOVE what he became in the reboot. So, yes, I had to have Felline/Panthro fluff! Squee!_

_4. And yes, I HAD to do it at Lion-O's expense. LOL._

_5. I really, really want to get into the social stigma against cats whose appearance is too catlike. For instance, the fact that Panthro once had a tail and Grune has bigger, more furry ears . . . and of course there are the kittens with their tails . . . Felline is definitely a second-class citizen, as they were or are. She gained nobility through her father rising through the ranks, but they were really just small-town folk before moving to Thundera. Lepra didn't have any physical aberrations, which always made Felline feel inferior even if she never gave the feeling a name or a reason. So, I hope to be able to pull her catness into the story later on. Maybe in the "second season" if I make it that far._

_Reviewer Thanks! **KelseyAlicia **(Haha, no worries! I've done that before, too, when FF logs me out without warning. And thank you!), **Naiko20 **(Getting closer, promise! I had fun having everybody walk on her a bit. Is that horrible of me? heehee), **Blacktiger93** (Oh, I seriously thought of having Panthro recognize her. The first time I wrote this, Snow was a friend of his . . . but I'm forced to admit that won't work this time, because she's only been in the city six months and he's been gone for years. :( Oh, well. At least we think alike, hee!), **Night Whisperer** (Will do. ;) At least, that's the plan . . . hee!), **Heart of the Demons** (Yay, thank you!), **Artemis zodiac** (AGREED :3), **Darwin** (. . . omg. I don't even know what to say here! LMAO! I love you so much - TEN REVIEWS! Oh, it was so nice to talk to you, and that was so awesome of you to do all in one shot. Thank you! It kind of makes me giddy to be the one to present the reboot to you, hee), and **J.A.M.B.** (Welcome back! I'm so glad you found your way here, and thank you for the kind words!). All of you are the BEST and you have my eternal gratitude. *bows*_

_NaNo is over (and I lost with 3,000 words to go, boo! Stupid holiday and being out of town. *grumble grumble*) so I will probably slow down on posting, but I am by no means done writing. I hope to see you all again soon!_

_Until next time,_

_Yours Faithfully,_

_Anne_


	19. The Cat May Look at a King, part four

"Is this it?" Tygra's voice floated out of the ThunderTank. "I don't see anything here."

"Looks like it's the end of the line," Panthro rumbled in response.

"Are you sure this is where Cheetara told us to go?"

"Look, kid, you ask her and stop harassing me."

Felline glanced toward the tank. Cheetara was down by the river, taking her turn at bathing. It would be a few minutes yet before she came back and put a stop to whatever argument was brewing in there.

Losing interest, Felline returned her attention to the pair of red lensed goggles she'd lifted off a dead lizard. The morning was bright and warm in the forest, her belly full of leftover meat from yesterday's hunts and the sweet yellow fruit they'd harvested from the trees around them. She perched atop a hollow log, its mossy bark dry and crumbly.

_Why do the lizards wear these_? she wondered, prying at the joints, testing the strap. Turning one of the lenses, she noticed that it telescoped in and out. They must be useful, or so many of Mumm-Ra's soldiers wouldn't wear them. She put them to her eyes, tilted her head back, but all she saw was darkness instead of gently rustling leaves against the blue sky.

From above, a loud belch caused a few birds to take flight. WilyKit and WilyKat burst out laughing. Wild and unrestrained as they could sometimes be, Kit started snorting, which made them laugh harder. Kat could barely speak, but Felline heard something that sounded like, "All right, Snarf!"

She shook her head. They were up a tree, naturally. She couldn't believe they were still eating, but then again, once kittens knew the pangs of starvation they became bottomless stomachs, and sometimes it seemed like Snarf ate for pleasure rather than any kind of need. But that was impossible. All living creatures needed to eat.

Several of Panthro's tools lay by Felline's feet. He was trusting her more and more with his things, since she'd proven to be of use in maintaining the finicky tank. Being half his height, she could wedge into tighter places, use tools on a smaller scale, get her hands in where he couldn't. She selected the long handled knife meant for electrical work and began disassembling the wiring behind one of the lenses. The casing itself had been cracked, but the red glass was still intact. If she could just get the power flowing to them again –

"Hey. Mind if I join you?"

The honest answer was yes, but Lion-O wasn't waiting for her to speak. He sat next to her on the crumbling log. "What do you have there?"

Just because he was bored, she had to provide entertainment? Warily, Felline held up the goggles so he could see them.

He grinned. "Nice. Where did you get those?"

She shrugged, all the answer she was willing to give.

"Yeah," he said, frowning, a look that clearly told her what he thought of her silence, but then he hitched a smile back in place, obviously hoping to soften her up. "Let me have a look."

When he reached for the goggles, however, she jerked them away.

"Come on, let me see," he said.

She shook her head, and then swapped the electrical knife for a double edged chisel and began grinding at the raised edge of the crack. She couldn't explain it, but she didn't want him messing with what was hers. It wasn't like he was completely ignorant when it came to technology. She knew that. But she'd found them; she would fix them; she would use them; and he could pound sand.

"I'm not going to hurt them, I just want to look," he insisted, reaching once more.

Ears easing back, she fended him off with her elbow. And that started a lopsided game of keep away. She tried twisting her shoulders, but that didn't work, either. Finally, she hoisted the goggles in one paw, putting the other flat against his chest. She pushed, shaking her head at him.

He wasn't paying any attention to her signals. She could see it in his face, a playful nature asserting itself, purposely making her angry because he knew she wasn't going to say anything. Furious, she held the goggles higher, but his arms were longer than hers and he was going to get them. Felline leaned as far from him as she could without losing her seat, but he leaned with her, grinning. "Gimme."

His claws scraped against the casing. She put a foot in his stomach, moving the heel of her palm to his jaw. They teetered there, straining against each other. Felline was growling.

"What are you _doing_?" Tygra blurted.

Arrested, both Lion-O and Felline looked over at him. Felline felt her face slowly warm, because she'd actually forgotten the others were even there. Tygra and Panthro stood with their arms crossed, their expressions plainly showing that they thought she and Lion-O were crazy. Or stupid. Or both. Behind them, Cheetara appeared, finger combing her long yellow hair.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Then the hollow log cracked. The brittle wood beneath Felline broke under their combined weight, dumping her to the ground with Lion-O on top of her.

_Ow_ . . . She squeezed her eyes shut against tears of pain, her arms splayed over her head, a winded Lion-O struggling to suck in a breath against her neck with one of her knees planted in his solar plexus.

"What _are_ you doing?" Panthro muttered, and suddenly the weight was gone.

"Put me down," Lion-O wheezed. Felline, who had rolled onto her side, gasping for breath, heard rather than saw rapid footsteps in the grass. "I just wanted to see this."

No! She sat up so fast her head spun. Her paws were empty.

Sure enough, he'd picked up the goggles. Felline sprang at him, but he dodged her. Twice. Three times. And she was getting madder with each attempt.

Then, Lion-O was no longer holding them. He turned to Cheetara, who looked as if she hadn't moved. "Hey!"

"That's not nice, Lion-O," Cheetara chided gently. "She obviously doesn't want you to have them."

"Tough," he responded, snatching them back from her. "She needs to learn to share."

If they weren't careful, they were going to break the goggles. Fuming, Felline clenched her fists and shouted, "I'm not a child! I was born in the Year of the Rooster. Stop talking about me like I'm not here!"

Dead silence.

"And _you_," she said, advancing on Lion-O, who, incredibly, backed up, eyes wide. "You keep walking around like the world owes you a favor. Grow up!"

She could talk! She could _talk_. And it was all pouring out of her, everything she'd wanted to say. Her voice echoed around the small clearing. "Do you think you're the only one who's lost something? _My sister_ died in Thundera that night! The lizards killed her, I ran, and I left her there. My father, too – he was a commander in _your_ palace guard. His name is Snow. Where is he now? Did he die for you? _Answer me_!"

Some of the shock had left his face, and he was calmly watching her scream. Or, not so calmly – she could tell that she was hurting him, but she didn't care.

"You wanted to leave _me_ to die. Because I would be a burden, get in your way. Let me ask you this: What is a king without a kingdom? And what is a kingdom? A city? A palace? Or is it the people? Without your people, you are the Lord of Nothing!" she shrieked.

Tygra was looking distinctly uncomfortable now. Panthro, on the other hand, wore a calculating expression as he listened to the seemingly unstoppable flow of speech from a previously mute cat.

"You even tried to get us killed!" Felline went ranting on. "And yet we stayed, every one of us, because we have nowhere else to go. Because we know that unless Mumm-Ra is stopped, all of Third Earth will be plunged into war, the free animals enslaved." She was breaking down, her words catching on dry sobs. "I know, okay? I've been watching and listening this whole time. I know what it is we have to do. What _you_ have to do. But you could be a little nicer to me."

It was Cheetara who stepped forward, but this didn't mollify Felline in the slightest. She could tell Cheetara hadn't liked her yelling at Lion-O, because her orange eyes were slits even though her coral pink lips were smiling. "Can you tell us your name?"

"Felline," Felline said, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "My name is Felline."

Cheetara's smile widened, and the shade of disapproval left her face as if it had never been there. She lifted her sun yellow head, turning her bright smile on their king. "Jaga's clues have gotten us this far. Now it's up to Lion-O to get us the rest of the way."

She'd succeeded in distracting everyone, for suddenly there was movement in the clearing. Without a word, Panthro ambled over to the ThunderTank with the kittens. Tygra, however, snapped his fingers.

"I can't believe I didn't see it before," he said to Felline. He put a heavy paw on her shoulder. "You look just like him. I'm sorry, but Commander Snow was on the front lines with us."

He didn't need to say any more than that. Ears drooping, Felline said, "Thank you," and he, too, walked away. She let him go, Bastien's name tasting like ash on her tongue.

Then Lion-O roughly pushed the goggles at her with a muttered, "Sorry."

But he didn't leave. He appeared to be thinking hard about something, and then he blurted, "Are you really a year older than me?"

Disgusted, Felline gave him Stink Eye, holding his gaze until he looked away first.

* * *

_**A/N: **Gosh, Felline, you aren't very nice! LOL! Poor Lion-O. But, hey, everyone makes mistakes. Maybe she can make it up to him somehow._

_On another note, I think chicks in goggles are hot (lol, I'm channeling "Up" here). Now that NaNo is over, I think I'm going to revisit creating Felline's character sheet. Wishing won't make me a better artist!_

_Reviewer Thanks! **KelseyAlicia **(Thankie! And, um, probably not as much as I've thought up that could potentially ruin it . . . hehe), **Blacktiger93 **(Excellent, thank you for the positive feedback!), **Night Whisperer** (Heehee, glad I got a laugh out of you. :3 I admit that I'm a huge fan of fluff. And of angst. Hard to say which is more fun to write, honestly), **Heart of the Demons** (Yay! I wasn't sure anyone was going to like the fluff, but it seems to have gone over okay. Thankie so much!), **Seeds of Destruction** (Thank you!), and **Naiko20** (Hooray, that makes me so happy! I'm doing something right! *does a victory dance*). I'm feeling all fluffy myself right now. :3 Thank you again for reviewing!_

_Next up, "Journey to the Tower of Omens"! And maybe Felline will have to deal with some consequences for putting her foot in her mouth. We'll see. :3 Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be banned from commenting on something that isn't written yet, huh? Damn . . ._

_Anne_


	20. A Bag of Cats, part one

The only reason Felline escaped further humiliation was that Cheetara insisted Lion-O use the Sword.

"Sword of Omens," he said, putting the hilt up to his face so that the elaborate hand guard curled around his eyes and the Eye of Thundera rested over his forehead, "give me Sight Beyond Sight."

He had his back to them, where all but Snarf had claimed seats on top of the ThunderTank. Still, even though Felline couldn't see his face, she could see by the rigid set of his shoulders that the Sword wasn't obeying.

"Okay, let's try this again," he muttered to the dormant Eye, squeezing the Sword's hilt rather harder than necessary. She could picture his expression, eyebrows lowered, mouth stubborn. He took up the same posture, the silver blade rising vertically above his head. "Sword of Omens, give me Sight Beyond Sight."

He was oriented toward a wall of vine-like tree trunks, tall and impassable. That was why they had decided to stop here in the first place – the benign forest was getting overrun by jungle and there was nowhere left to go. The morning light turned a deep green as it filtered through the canopy of leaves, utterly still and peaceful.

"Aw, come on, work!" Lion-O growled in frustration, as far from peace as a cat could get.

"Are you telling me our only chance of finding the Book of Omens is if his sword gives him directions?" Panthro asked Cheetara in his slow, exasperated way.

Felline leaned around his bulk just as Tygra grinned. "It's about as hopeless as it sounds," he said, trying not to laugh.

"Lion-O can get us there. He just needs to believe in himself," Cheetara said sharply. "It might help if _you_ believed in him, too."

That shut Tygra up. He said nothing as she lithely hopped off the tank and walked toward Lion-O without a backward glance, although the prince's eyes never left her.

Felline didn't say anything, either. It was obvious Lion-O was out of sorts. Although she doubted the others could hear him swearing under his breath, she couldn't help it, and suspected his mood was her fault. She was feeling really bad for yelling at him earlier, but had no idea what she should do about it. Apologize? Maybe. But not in front of everyone else.

"This is dumb!" Lion-O blurted, lowering the Sword after a third botched attempt. He tilted the blade, catching the sun on its mirrored surface as if hoping to see the answers there instead. "I don't even know what I'm looking for."

"Sometimes when you look too hard you miss what is right in front of you," Cheetara said in her customary gentle voice, which hovered at the edge of a smile. She closed the distance between them.

"Tell me about it," Lion-O said in an undertone.

Although the kittens had lost interest, Tygra and Panthro sat at an angle, straining to pick up what Felline could hear even if she stuck her fingers in her ears, which she was sorely tempted to do. Watching Cheetara flirt with Lion-O was kind of embarrassing in a painful way. She wished the cleric wasn't quite so open with her feelings and didn't encourage the same in others. Some things were just meant to be done in private.

Unaware of Felline's opinion, Cheetara leaned in close, putting one paw on Lion-O's shoulder guard, pressed up against his back so that she could whisper in his pointed ear.

"If you can master Sight Beyond Sight, it will show you what your eyes can't see, but your mind has to be open. Now, try again. And this time, relax."

Felline mimed a gag, earning a squint from Panthro, but at least Cheetara put some space between herself and Lion-O so that he could concentrate. That was when Felline noticed WilyKat leading his sister silently through the tree branches, stopping only when they were right above the oblivious couple on the ground. Panthro and Tygra had also seen them, and neither one chose to say a word.

Contact in five . . . four . . . three . . .

"Relax," Lion-O repeated, and let out a breath. "Got it."

Felline rolled her eyes. As if. Just being in Cheetara's proximity had him wound up six ways from Sunday.

. . . one.

"Whatcha doin'?" Kat asked in his high, childish voice, upside-down and nose to nose with Lion-O, causing the king to grow an inch taller in surprise.

Kit dropped out of the tree and landed on her toes. "_Ooo_-ooo-ooo, I know what _they_ were doing," she singsonged gleefully, and began making loud kissing noises, her tail undulating suggestively.

"_No_," Lion-O blustered. "We were just – trying to get – my – sword to work," he finished lamely, losing steam at the end. Innocently wide kitten eyes had that effect on just about everyone, and Cheetara was leaving him to flounder alone.

It was there that Panthro lost interest. Shaking his head, the big cat slid off the tank and disappeared to complete some of the ongoing repairs. Arms crossed, Tygra stayed where he was, frowning, but Felline gravitated toward the kittens when WilyKit, her small face serious, asked, "Why is this book so hard to find, anyway?"

Kat easily let himself down next to his sister, equally serious, and he asked, "Did they forget where they put it?"

Cheetara smiled indulgently at them. "In a way, yes," she answered.

Shyly, Felline put her paws behind her back when she reached them, wordlessly asking Lion-O's permission to be that near, but all of his attention was focused on Cheetara. Felline listened to her, too, curious about what the truth might be.

"You see, the Book of Omens wasn't lost," the cleric said. "Rather, it was hidden, with the intention that it would never be found."

Panthro's head popped out of the ThunderTank.

"Legend says the Book of Omens held clues both to our past, and keys to our future. Because some believed it could be even more valuable than the Sword of Omens, the other animals would stop at nothing to get it. The king knew it contained too much power to allow it to fall into the wrong hands, so he had the clerics hide it, far beyond the kingdom walls." She paused, solemn, and then said, "Far beyond anywhere the cats had ever been.

"To keep it safe, they built a temple. One made with magic. The Tower of Omens was inaccessible to anyone but themselves, and protected by ancient enchantments. They then sealed themselves into the Temple, forever."

It felt like one of Master Korvu's lessons. Forgetting that it wasn't her sister speaking, Felline reasonably asked, "If that's true, if no one came back, then how do you know all this?"

Instantly, both Cheetara and Lion-O glared at her, one sternly, the other accusingly.

"Its location would be a secret they took to their grave," Cheetara said frostily, her paw on her shapely hip.

_Whoa, wait_ – Surprise turned to anger, and Felline closed her lips on apologies and explanations. So she hadn't meant that to come out quite like it did – What did it matter? Lepra was dead, and this wasn't one of Master Korvu's moderated debates. Just because it seemed rather far-fetched that Cheetara knew all this, since if the clerics had sealed themselves inside their tower no one could possibly know what had happened to them or what they had done, didn't mean that she had to put her neck on the chopping block.

The two women were glaring at each other, causing Kit and Kat's mouths to hang open, when Panthro joined them and blandly said, "That's why Grune and I knew we'd probably never find it."

"So we have to just get lucky and hope we stumble onto it?" Tygra asked incredulously.

A babble of voices rose up, growing steadily more irritated. The discussion might have gone on for a lot longer, but Snarf caused a distraction in the form of a minor avalanche of hard yellow fruits.

_Meyao_, he said, sitting up on his branch, his paws wrapped around the ball-like fruit. Behind him, no longer hidden by the harvest, a carved stone lion head gazed out at them all, its mouth open in a roar.

"Maybe we just _did_," Lion-O said to his brother, his whole aspect changing from gloom to anticipation in an instant. He walked up to the lion head, grasped a few desiccated vines, and yanked, revealing a tunnel of smooth stone bricks.

"How did we not see that?" Cheetara breathed, and Lion-O turned to her with one of his contagious smiles.

"Well, I guess sometimes when you look too hard, you miss what's right in front of you," he said in a voice meant for her ears alone. Then he tilted his head back. "Nice work, Snarf."

_Nya_! Snarf waited until the kittens passed below him, and then dropped down onto WilyKit's back to hitch a ride.

Felline gazed at the weathered lion head. This was it. The Book of Omens was almost in their grasp, and the light of adventure had kindled a warmth inside of her. Like the others, she willingly followed her king into the tunnel.

* * *

_**A/N: **Hello, Dear Readers! I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend. :) Is everybody in North America staying warm? (Six degrees where I am today. Yippee.)_

_I did it! I have completed my first rough concept sketch of Felline! You can view it on DeviantArt - I've put the link on my profile. Please head over and let me know what you think! I am going to make another sketch and try to make her more toon-like (my style and the TC style are not alike at all, drat it). But that's for another day._

_Today, is an update! *dances happily*_

_Reviewer Thanks! **KelseyAlicia** (I'm glad you enjoyed it. The freedom to have people say whatever they want is part of the joys of being a writer, isn't it? hee), **Heart of the Demons** (Yeah, that was my plan. Let's see if I can deliver. Thanks again!), **Darwin **(woop woop, you caught up! Amazing! Thank you thank you for doing all that, you know I love every single review I get, hee), **Night Whisperer **(Yes, success! *victory dance* So happy you liked it - at least, it sounded like you did, lol. I'm a little apprehensive right now because I'm not sure WHAT they'll say to each other, but I'm sure I'll get there. I hope. I think. LOL), **Blacktiger93** (hee, your review had me cracking up, what a great response! Glad you liked it! And I'm sure the explosions aren't done yet with them, silly kids. Thank you!), **Naiko20** (Hee, thank you! So happy you enjoyed it!), **Artemis zodiac** (Oooo, I really like that you picked up on that in your second review. That's so AWESOME! Thanks for leaving two of them at once, too!), **Hestia28** (LOL, yeah! Thanks!), **Seeds of Destruction** (lmao, That was exactly the response I wanted. ;) Thank you!), and **Mooncloudpanther** (New reviewer! Welcome! I know I've said it already, but they're mine, too - the snow leopards, anyway. I love reading about them in other people's fics, so I hope you enjoy this one here, too. Thank you so much for reviewing!)._

_Well, cutting this short (?) because my family is calling me, merphle. -_- Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'll be back soon!_

_All my love,_

_Anne_

_P.S. Don't forget to go to my profile and clickie the linkie to see Felline! Thank you!_


	21. A Bag of Cats, part two

The tunnel turned out not to be a tunnel, but a bridge.

Bringing up the rear, Felline peered over the edge of the bridge, her night vision picking out the forest of tall, lethal spikes that carpeted the floor of the cavernous room. What purpose did _those_ serve?

"I don't like the look of that," she said softly, still not quite used to speaking. The kittens and Snarf knelt at the edge and made identical noises of dismay.

With what little ambient light was available, Felline couldn't tell how big the room was, or even if the bridge and walls were made of metal or stone. Like her rifle, it seemed to be some kind of in between material. It was deathly quiet.

Haltingly, Lion-O approached the far wall, where another lion's head frieze roared silently at them, its mane freakishly spread out like tentacles around its disembodied face. Within its open mouth, a door beckoned.

He put his paw on the red and blue design of a stylized cat's eye – exactly the same shades as his mane and armor, Felline noted – and pushed experimentally. Everyone but the kittens crowded around him on the narrow walkway for a closer examination. A small slot mocked them from the middle of the painted eye.

"Think they left the key behind?" Lion-O joked, giving Cheetara a rueful grin.

"Actually," Tygra said, and jerked his thumb toward the indistinct ceiling. "They left a few."

They all looked up. Metal keys glinted in the low lighting, dangling by wires thinner than a cat hair, twisting in unseen breaths of air. No one needed to say it. Something about the spike bottomed room demanded a hushed respect. And it was cold. Felline tucked her paws under her arms.

"We'll just have to try them all," Cheetara reasoned. She extended her staff and gave a gentle swipe with it. Jingling, three keys fell into her palm, their gossamer wires still attached.

Panthro said what Felline was thinking – "This could take forever." – but Cheetara was already fitting the first random key into the lock in the center of the eye's red, slitted pupil. She turned it, and there was a series of clunky, rusty groans and an ominous thud.

The door didn't open.

Cheetara jerked upright as what sounded like a crank started up, wheezing. The walkway beneath their feet rumbled, buzzing against their soles.

"I don't think we have forever," Tygra said grimly.

WilyKat and Kit saw it first: The bridge had separated from the entrance and was retracting. Fast.

Snarf screamed, and he and the kittens sprinted toward the locked door. Felline, digging her claws into the unrelenting seams, didn't know what they'd do once they got there, but the truncated end of the walkway was right on their heels, and she knew that to stop was to fall into the carpet of tall, thin spikes below.

They reached the end a second before the walkway did, and it was sucked into the wall with a jerk. With a collective shout, everyone jumped.

Everyone fell.

Felline latched her arms around the only solid thing near her, which turned out to be Cheetara's waist. Unable to breathe, she stared into Tygra's dark eyes until she was able to convince her frantically pounding heart that they were safe. WilyKit was wrapped around Tygra's leg like a furry boot, a bemused Snarf hooked in his arm. He himself dangled from Lion-O's ankle.

"Whiskers," Lion-O whispered, and Felline looked up.

Cheetara was hugging Panthro's trousered leg and Lion-O was gripping two fistfuls of his spiked vest, while WilyKat perched on the big panther's back, his tail twice the size of normal.

All seven cats were relying on the strength of Panthro's fingers, sunken deep in the crumbling, inch-wide ledge beneath the locked door.

"Find the key!" Panthro managed to say in a strangled voice.

"How?" Felline asked, Cheetara's hair in her face. She blew it out of her eyes in time to see WilyKit pass her, nimbly climbing up the chain of cats.

"Leave this to the masters," WilyKat called down smugly.

"Hurry!" Lion-O grunted. "There's hundreds to pick from."

He wasn't the only one making sounds of pain. Cheetara and Panthro both sounded like they were being pulled apart at the joints.

Felline tried to shift her weight, reaching for a handhold on Panthro's belt, but Cheetara went rigid and Tygra barked, "Hold still!"

"Sorry," she whispered. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Sorry for moving. Sorry for hurting Cheetara.

Sorry for being useless.

Above them, Kat stood on his sister's head while she stood on Panthro's.

"Why waste time picking out a key –" Kit calmly said to them.

"– when you can just pick the lock?" finished Kat. Tiny scrapes and clicks bounced around the room, amplified by the high, empty walls, and then there was another clunk.

Creaking and clanking, the doors slid aside. The kittens disappeared. Tygra tossed Snarf through the new opening, and then stretched for Felline. Letting go of Cheetara, she grabbed his paw gratefully as she swung down and let him hoist her to the ledge on the upswing. Quickly, she got out of the way as one by one the other cats jumped up on their own. It took the combined effort of both brothers to haul Panthro to safety, though.

On his paws and knees, the general dragged himself through just as the doors slid shut again, locking them in. Felline crawled over to him, offering him a smile in the darkness when he raised his head. Panthro nodded at her and accepted her help in standing. Just one of his paws engulfed her arm up to the elbow.

"The Book could be just beyond that wall," Lion-O said, his voice echoing oddly.

Felline turned around. They were in another room, very long, smaller than the first but still big. It was hexagonal in shape, and consisted of uneven stone blocks.

Naturally, there was a door at the further end. This one was circular, with a comical feline face carved into it. Felline thought its expression was mocking them, and put her ears back in distaste.

With a confidence no one else seemed to feel now that he was no longer hanging like a rack of meat, Panthro stepped forward once he regained feeling in his numb arms.

His foot touched a stone tile. It sank under his weight.

With the slick rasp of metal on metal, a whirling sickle blade slid out of the wall, nearly shaving his nose off his face. Faster than sound, Cheetara yanked the big cat backward just as more of the whirling, shearing blades slid into place, blocking off the entire passage.

"Legend said the ancients rigged a series of obstacles near the temple, meant to keep outsiders away," she said, her orange eyes on the spinning blades.

"Couldn't have warned us sooner?" Felline muttered, and Tygra bit his lips on a smirk.

"Then this whole place is a death trap," Panthro growled indignantly. He probably hadn't heard Felline, which was good.

Ignoring all of them, Cheetara grinned fiercely. "Gotta move fast," she said. And before anyone could say anything else, she was off, a blur of sun yellow in the dank, lethal corridor.

Kit clapped her paws over her mouth. So did Felline. Their anxiety lasted less than a second, however. Cheetara reappeared on the far side of the trap, sliding on her knees toward the cat faced door. She stood, completely unharmed. Then, as if she'd known what to do all along, she raised her staff over her head and extended it.

The two ends of the pole pushed two separate panels back into the tilted walls, which cut power to the spinning sickle blades. They stilled and then retracted, leaving the way clear. Behind the cleric, the stone door rolled aside with the grinding of giant molars.

A cheer bubbled up in Felline's chest, and she let it out as she bounded toward Cheetara. She couldn't help it – that had been amazing! No matter the antagonistic feelings between them, nothing could have beaten that, and thanks to Cheetara, they could move forward. The kittens whooped and hollered with her.

"Nice work," Lion-O said, flipping Cheetara a thumbs up as he ran by her.

Felline caught a glimpse of Cheetara's face. She didn't blush, but she did smile, pleased with herself and with his praise. When all had passed, she lowered her staff, jumped through the doorway, and let the door roll ponderously closed again.

_Two traps down_, Felline thought. How many more to go?

She followed Lion-O into the next room, and stopped dead in her tracks.

For one wild, ridiculous moment, she felt like she'd returned to Thundera.

Then the déjà vu passed, and she could see clearly. This time, the room was square, still built of the same stone blocks, but much brighter than the prior two. Two white-gold beams of light penetrated the gloom, angling into the stone basin in the center of the room. Like Thundera's great white fountain, the basin was filled with clear water. The beams of light originated from a tiny aperture in one wall, which then reflected off the surface of the utterly still water and terminated at the eyes of a stone lion's head in the opposite wall.

Felline frowned at it. What an odd way to light up the room. And what was the source of the light? It wasn't daylight, that was for sure. It was too bright, the color and direction wrong.

WilyKit and WilyKat trotted forward, their tails waving happily since nothing spiky or sharp had accosted them, and leaned over the basin's lip.

"Look, treasure!" Kit exclaimed.

She was right. The light multiplied in the basin, shining off mounds of gold and silver coins. Heaps of lambent, glittering wealth. Like a magnet, the basin drew all of their eyes.

The glittery lights were beguiling, making Felline forget about possible traps.

"We're rich!" Kat cried, and stuck his paw in the water.

"Wait!" Lion-O yelled, startling Felline, but Kat was busy gathering coins. Ripples spread out from his arm, disrupting the beams of light.

With a low growl, the stone eyes in the lion head, no longer in contact with the white light, glowed a menacing red.

* * *

_**A/N: **Greetings and Salutations! Anne here._

_Welp, not a lot new in this chapter, if anything. It took me a little while to go through it and clean it up and update it, though. This episode's chapters were written about two years ago, when I first started writing CC - it was this episode that birthed Felline, actually, although that won't come out until the next segment. For now, I leave you with this, and I profusely apologize that this is another of those recap chapters._

_Reviewer Thanks! **Blacktiger93 **(I feel like such a heel, posting a chapter like this that isn't any different than watching the show! Not only that, but I have to leave all the cool Mumm-Ra stuff out. *pout* I hope you don't mind it too much and will wait for the next chapter!), **KelseyAlicia** (I agree! I love cute, especially when it's guy-cute. ^_^), **Heart of the Demons **(Oh, good, I hoped that would come out all right. I'm always blown away by how perceptive my readers are - it's really flattering and a nice challenge. :3), **Naiko20 **(Re: the sketch: Thank you! Re: the review: Me, too, LMAO!), **Darwin** (Oh, chica, that was part of the fun of watching the reboot; all the things we thought we knew, we don't anymore - but there are some really fun nods to the original series [like the outtake reference on the samoflange, so HILARIOUS]. I mean, at least Lion-O isn't fake-aged and freaky anymore [no, he was SO not my favorite in the original, and frankly the kittens used to make me gag], so now there's this awesome and awkward love triangle going on between him and her and Tygra . . . yay! Plus, Lion-O's original voice actor played Claudus, and he did the "ThunderCats, HO!" and it was AMAZING . . . fangique alert! I'll stop rambling now), **Night Whisperer** (Re: the review: Oh, my, I know who would win that. Felline still has a lot of growing up to do, hee! Re: the sketch: Thank you!), and **Momochan77** (Welcome! Thank you [again] for stopping by!). To all of you, here's one big THANK YOU for being the best people on Fanfic. Thank you. Really._

_And, I must say, I am so grateful for all of the recent favorites for this story! You guys are awesome!_

_Until next time,_

_Anne_


	22. A Bag of Cats, part three

To Felline's absolute horror, the red lights flicked off and a torrent of icy water poured from the lion's open mouth. That wasn't all, either. Floods cascaded from spouts set high above their heads, and the treasure and both kittens vanished under a shimmering waterfall.

They reappeared a second later, coughing. The force of the water had knocked WilyKit flat, sweeping the kittens against a plinth, but Kat picked his sister up hurriedly before she could get washed away. The water was already ankle deep.

Without a word, the cats scattered, splashing through the currents to get to the walls. Felline followed Tygra up to a ledge, and he pushed her gently toward the center, angling her behind him, sharp eyes searching for their next haven.

"You okay, Panthro?" WilyKit asked from the next ledge, and Felline looked over curiously.

The big cat was sitting as far from the edge as he could get, his bulky arms wrapped around his knees. Teeth chattering, eyes tightly shut, he said, "No. I never told you guys," he gulped, and then shouted in total mortification, "but I can't swim!"

Felline and Tygra exchanged a glance that spoke volumes. Rushing, splashing, the water was still rising. Fast. The lion head spout was already out of sight, the ceiling a lot closer to them than the floor. Not that she needed the assistance, Tygra helped her climb higher, giving her the occasional boost. The kittens hopped like bunnies, leading Panthro higher. They were converging, Lion-O and Cheetara coming in from the right, Panthro and the kittens the left, as their available dry spaces dwindled.

"Looks like an exit up there!" Tygra called above the burbling, crashing water, pointing to a grate perhaps two feet by three set into the ceiling. "We'll wait for the water to rise and float up to it."

Felline, her nose full of icy mist, sneezed. WilyKit and Kat were sniffling, too. Swirling, the water clasped their feet, roped their knees, and bubbled at their elbows. The myriad currents pushed and pulled at them, corralling them in the center of the room. By the time it reached Felline's neck, lifting her toes off the last ledge and setting her adrift, Panthro was in real trouble. She could hear him spluttering and flailing, but with the way the water was turning them about and throwing them against each other, she had no hope of assisting him.

Bobbing like a cork on the unruly waves, Cheetara extended her staff, digging and prying at the grate. "I can't open it from this side," she said, fear making her voice high.

Felline got a faceful of water, making her sneeze again. She propelled herself away from the others, trying to avoid the cat-made eddies. She wasn't worried about staying afloat; having grown up among the lakes, she was an excellent swimmer. But that wasn't true for everyone.

"I ain't gonna make it, kid," Panthro gasped.

Felline, fending off the opposing currents so she wouldn't get banged up against the wall, watched, aghast, as he sank noisily below the surface. Instantly, the king dove after the panther.

"Lion-O!" she cried, and then started coughing as she got a mouthful of water. She kept her mouth closed after that, knowing that he couldn't hear her anyway.

Still, the déjà vu was back, sinking cold needles of fear into her heart. She'd thought she was clever that day in Thundera, when she saw the silver coin at the bottom of the fountain and pretended it was the prince himself, needing to be rescued. He was underwater now, in the dark, alone, and so was Panthro. She counted the seconds, waiting for them to resurface.

One. What if they didn't come up? Two. They weren't going to drown. Three. Lion-O . . .

At thirty-four, Lion-O burst out of the water, sucking in a huge lungful of air. "Panthro's gone," he said shakily, disbelief shining starkly in his eyes.

It wasn't like the rest of them were doing any better. They were high enough now to reach the grate, but no matter how hard Tygra, Lion-O, and Cheetara pushed and shoved at it, it wouldn't budge. Felline cracked her head on the unforgiving ceiling more than once as the water continued to rise.

There was no way Panthro could still be alive. Tears mixed with the water trapped in her fur, but she determinedly hauled both kittens to the center of their circle. Mewling, Kit and her brother hooked their little fingers in the grate, breathing the air that was escaping through it. The opening wasn't big enough to admit all of them, however, and Felline put her paws flat on the stone above her.

Even with no hope, they couldn't stop fighting. Lion-O and Cheetara continued wrestling with the immovable grate, and Tygra was flush against Felline's side, straining against the impermeable stone that continued to inch nearer. Her neck bent painfully as she pressed her cheek to the ceiling. Her eyes were full of water, and she could no longer hear anything because her ears were, too. The water crept up, covered her mouth, and, finally, the air was gone.

Panicking, they all poked their hands through the slits of the grate, reaching for air, for freedom, seedlings stretching toward the first hints of sunlight. It was so cold, the water an icy thunder in Felline's ears.

Slowly, with each painful beat of her heart, the light dimmed.

_I'm going to drown_, she thought distantly. What had started back in Foret was about to come true. They would die, and the ThunderCats would pass pointlessly into history.

Suddenly, the pressure against her hand vanished, and she was swept sideways, her head breaking the surface. Clear, crisp sound returned. A babble of voices rose, deliriously happy: "Panthro! You're alive!"

Someone seized her arm, lifting her out of the hole. Water streamed from her clothes and splashed on stone, and then she was lowered gently, cradled by strong arms. Exhausted, she lay still, eyes closed, grateful for the simple motion of air moving effortlessly in and out of her lungs and the absence of the battering currents.

"Guess not being able to swim has its advantages," Panthro rumbled, and then he tersely explained about the port hole he'd discovered at the bottom of the water room that opened onto a chute and had led him to safety.

"It was a trick," Cheetara diagnosed.

"They've all been tricks," Tygra grumbled. "Everything about this place was meant to lead us in the wrong direction." However, his voice was still reverberating, and Felline opened her eyes in dismay. Weren't they out of this crazy death trap yet?

Panthro tossed aside the offending grate, and it made a satisfying clang against the floor. Tygra was helping Cheetara to her feet, the kittens checking each other over.

Felline looked up into Lion-O's smiling face. She was lying half in his lap, and he let her use his arm to stand.

"You okay?" he asked.

Once, she'd pretended to save him from drowning. Apparently, he'd returned the favor in an all too real way. Face warm, she moved away from him, trying to get control of her wet, tangled hair. "Yes. Thank you," she whispered.

But his attention had already moved onto something else. He cast his gaze warily about this new room.

Which was blacker than any room yet. The only light came from below, muted blue through the glacial water draining out of the last trap. Perversely, the light made it impossible to see anything else.

All of Felline's wet fur was standing on end. Now that the sounds of water were diminishing, she could hear something else. A piercing, high pitched whine that was terribly familiar.

"Nobody move!" she said sharply.

"We're not," Tygra said, startled by her tone.

"We've learned our lesson," Kat said, a sentiment his sister fervently seconded. She waved a quelling hand at them in the darkness.

The whine was changing, going higher than even Felline could hear, and then it stopped with a loud _poff_.

Thousands of tiny lights popped into blinding brilliance. They were everywhere, outlining each smooth, stone-metal tile, embedded in the seams of the white walls, blanketing the ceiling. They were brighter than Felline thought possible, burning white hot and growing painful. Lion-O and Panthro both snarled through the searing whiteness, and Cheetara shouted, "What's happening?"

"I can't see!" Kit wailed.

"No one can," Tygra said irritably.

"Well, we can't just stand here all day!" Lion-O exclaimed.

It was the sound that tipped her off. It was still there, very faint. "Quiet," Felline whispered. "Just wait."

They obeyed, their soft breathing the only interruption.

She knew that sound. It was the sound of machinery, of electricity, of _technology_. With the adrenaline of discovery speeding up her perspective, she started putting the pieces together in her head. Electrical power was the answer to all of these mysteries. Closed circuits and coded instructions, clear cut mathematical algorithms, set in motion by their actions.

The bridge. The wrong key had triggered the first trap, but it had taken electrical power and knowledge of machines to build a walkway that could disappear. In the second, the sinking stone block had closed a circuit and sent the command to the whirling sickle blades. In the third – why, that one was the most obvious. The light beams had been artificial, as had the glowing red eyes in the lion head. Mechanisms in the walls had released the deluge.

"This isn't magic," she breathed, trembling with wonder and certainty. "It's _tech_. Whatever those clerics built here, it's all machinery."

"I wouldn't have believed it possible," Cheetara said after a moment, grudging admiration in her voice. "The ancients used our own taboos against us. They wanted to make sure _no one_ got to the Tower."

"A legend grows from truth," Felline agreed. "And the truth gets lost with each retelling. Technology becomes magic."

"That's all well and good," Tygra huffed, "but how do we get out of this? We're blind!"

"But I'm not!" Excitedly, Felline snapped her goggles over her eyes and all the whiteness turned black. She fumbled with the power switch. The energy pack emitted the same whine as the lights when power zapped through her jury rigged wiring. All of a sudden, the blackness blipped into solid red and several strange, unreadable symbols stabbed at her eyes. Then the lenses blanked, the color evened out, and she could see.

Everything was awash in crimson, but it was no darker than normal daylight. Dripping, Lion-O and the others were all rubbing at their eyes, either trying to block the intrusive light or cracking their lids the tiniest bit only to pinch them shut right away. None could see that they were ensnared in yet another trap. Miraculously, they were standing in the only safe place in the whole room. It looked like a cage made of the thinnest wire, some kind of contained light beams that appeared as no more than lines of brighter red to Felline's enhanced vision. The light bulbs in the walls, floor, and ceiling were emitting the beams at irregular intervals, some millimeters apart, others intersecting after a few feet.

Snarf, once more perched on Tygra's shoulder, flicked his tufted tail, which passed through one of the beams.

Instantly, the wall opened fire. There was a sizzle, the stench of burned cat hair, several people shrieked, and Snarf hit the floor heavily.

* * *

_**A/N: **Hello, Dear Friends, and Happy Wednesday!_

_Whee! I've been longing to publish this chapter for a while now. I LOVED the whole Indiana Jones feel of "Journey to the Tower of Omens," but I always wondered how exactly the traps worked. They seemed like more than simple trip wires and weighted triggers (for instance, HOW did the sickle blades keep spinning?). So, this is my answer. :3 And I took it a step farther, wanting the creepiness of pure tech to give them some trouble._

_Poor Snarf! There's a reason for hurting him, and it's the simple fact that I can't put "Butterfly Blues" into this story. Trust me, okay? :3_

_Reviewer Thanks! **KelseyAlicia **(Thank you! That was my goal, so I'm really pleased to know that it's working out :3), **Momochan77** (Hee, well, it is a LITTLE longer than the last one. I don't know why, but all of my chapters in all of my fanfics tend to fall between 1,000 and 2,000 words. It feels weird to make them any longer . . . I personally get kind of daunted by super long chapters online. BUT. I think Blacktiger93 [was that you?] mentioned something similar, about wanting the chapters longer, too . . . I can try?), **Heart of the Demons **(*does a dance of happy victory* YES! Felline integration, SUCCESS! hee. Although, now I'm totally worried about this chapter making her a Mary Sue . . . *snicker*), **Darwin **(Right? I had fun with the fountain. She's a cat, of course she's going to see sparklies and be all, Prrreeeeetttyyyyy. LOL! Kidding), **Blacktiger93** (How's this? Do you like "her" scene so far? I hope so! :3), **Night Whisperer** (Oh, yes, that's so true! [I'm sure she'd love a hug, by the way.] I'm so happy the chapter went over so well with you guys! :3), and **Naiko20** (Hee, here you go! Did you like it? I hope so! :3). Everybody, once again, THANK YOU. For your time, for your encouragement and compliments, for just being so amazing. *HUGS*_

_Humbly, Gratefully Yours,_

_Anne_


	23. A Bag of Cats, part four

"Don't move, nobody move!" Felline screamed over the cries of her friends. The last thing they needed was for the beams to kill someone else. _Please let him be okay, please_!

She gathered her weight in her legs. Then, in a short series of hops, she navigated the spaces between the beams and crouched by the small red bundle on the floor. Mouth dry, she knelt in the steadily growing puddle of water that was still streaming off everyone's clothes and fur and put her palm on his side, checking for signs of life.

Eyes crossed, fur crinkled and smoking, Snarf sat up abruptly, making Felline jump.

"Aaah!"

"Felline!" Lion-O cried, dropping into a fighting crouch, feet wide on the slick, wet floor. He snarled in frustration, still unable to see.

"I'm okay," she assured him quickly, her heart speeding up for an entirely different reason. That was the first time he'd said her name. She bent over the petcat, changing the subject in her mind, focusing on the real problem. "Snarf is okay, too!"

_Snyah_, Snarf said dizzily. With every passing second, he looked more alert. Shaking water out of his shaggy coat, he stood up and blinked his big eyes at Felline. Of them all, he seemed the least bothered by the bright light.

"Good," Lion-O said softly. Snarf meant a great deal to him, she knew. He had his back to her, but she could see the sag of relief across his shoulders. She could also see the beam humming right between his feet and hoped he could hold that position for a little longer.

She had to get the beams turned off and the door open – she could see that, too, at the far end of the room, this time bearing a carving of the Eye of Thundera – and to do that, she had to cut power to the tiny burning lights.

Well, what if she simply shot them out?

She unholstered her rifle, drew a bead on a random bulb, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

With a hissed curse, she examined the power readout and saw that it was dead across the board. It was waterlogged.

_That's just great_. How was it that the goggles were working, but not the rifle? Maybe Jorma's craftsmanship just wasn't up to lizard standards. She unsnapped the battery casing and removed the power pack, hoping it would dry, before holstering the gun.

Then she looked at Snarf, and got a better idea.

"I need your help, Snarf," she said, kneeling by him.

He cocked his head to the side. _Nya_?

While the others waited, she told him her plan. He listened as if understanding every word.

"Absolutely not," Lion-O interjected.

"Why not?" She frowned at him, forgetting that he couldn't see her. "It's the only way."

"It's too dangerous!"

"Hey, Lion-O, you said it yourself: We can't just stand here all day," Tygra drawled, and Lion-O angrily subsided.

"You sure about this?" Panthro asked slowly. "If you get hit by one of those lasers –"

She understood his concern. Snarf may have been able to withstand them, but she was no petcat. Nevertheless, she had to try. "I'm sure," she said.

"We're counting on you," Cheetara put in.

Right. "Here I go!"

Ducking, swerving, hurdling, Felline navigated the three dimensional maze like an acrobat until she got far enough away from the others that she wouldn't be putting them in harm's way. Then, she verbally guided Snarf to another beam across from her.

"Ready?" she asked him, and although the little petcat seemed terrified, he put his ears back determinedly and nodded at her.

"Now." She deliberately tripped one of the beams the same time Snarf flicked his tail through the one over his head. They then leaped in opposite directions. As expected, the walls opened fire, burning tiny, smoking holes in the floor right where they had been standing.

". . . Did it work?" Panthro asked into the sizzling of the floor.

Felline shook her head. Then, feeling dumb, she reminded herself that he couldn't see her and that she had speech at her disposal. "No. It wasn't enough."

Scaring her with a shrill _beep_, the goggles came to life. The symbols and words flashing in front of her eyes confused her at first, but then she realized they were analyzing the trap for her. A fierce grin spread across her face when they began to target the beams that would serve her purpose.

The next beams they tripped caused an implosion when the walls, programmed to fire where the beam was interrupted, shot out its own bulbs, the one aiming for Felline hitting Snarf's, and vice versa. Moving faster now, Felline darted around, drawing fire, staying just ahead of the killing lasers. At the opposite end of the room, Snarf was doing much the same thing, although he couldn't see the beams. It was enough for him to run pell-mell, dodging the shots, keeping up a continual frightened _snyar snyar snyar_ as he leaped and contorted and cartwheeled, trying not to get hit again.

Finally, they triggered the last one together. Snarf got tangled up in his own paws and slid across a yard of glassy tiles, faceplanting at Felline's feet. And she, her breathing ragged, punched the panel that unlocked the door and then ripped the goggles off her head.

The flood of true daylight revealed a scene of smoking, charred destruction. Nearly dry, Felline bent over, bracing her paws on her thighs, and fought to catch her breath.

WilyKit dared to open one eye. Then the other. "You did it!" she crowed.

"Way to go!" Kat yelled.

They were smiling at her. Cheetara. Tygra. Panthro. She met all of their gazes, but could do no more than briefly touch on the complicated blue of Lion-O's. Embarrassment and pride warring within her, Felline glanced down at Snarf.

"Good job, partner," she murmured, scratching under Snarf's furry chin.

_Myao_! he purred.

..::~*~::..

Rather than the temple, what lay on the other side of the door was a canyon cut deep into the mountain, brimming over with dense jungle growth. Half a mile away, a cliff face rose opposite them, a waterfall pouring endlessly over its lip.

Confused, Felline turned around. Yet another carved lion head roared around the black rectangle that led back into the mountain, stalactites serving as upper fangs. This frieze was cracked and worn by ages of weather. They'd come the right way, and yet –

"There's nothing here!" Lion-O snarled, staring in disbelief over the hot, steamy canyon. "All those traps just to protect more _jungle_? Maybe no one can find this temple because it doesn't exist!"

He was shaking, his paws clenched. All that way, all that work, for nothing. And they needed the Book so badly.

It certainly seemed they'd been taken for fools. _Again_. They were standing on a broad ledge cut into the cliff face, with no way up or down the smooth rock sides. No stairs, no ladders, no further doors.

Beside her, Tygra stiffened.

"Or maybe," Cheetara said to Lion-O's back, hips swaying as she walked forward, "it takes more than just getting past physical traps to find it."

Lion-O looked at her. So did Tygra. Felline was watching _him_. Unaware of his audience, Tygra's mouth tightened as if he was clenching his teeth. Interesting. Neither she nor the prince was very happy about this sudden turn of events, apparently.

Troubled by that thought, Felline fastened her goggles around her neck and wondered if it was for the same reasons.

Cheetara never took her eyes off Lion-O, shoulders back, spine straight, confidence in the ancients wiping her pretty face of all expression. And then she smiled. "_Believe_ in yourself," she said, her voice a low and intimate purr. She took his bigger paw and squeezed. "I do."

Something squeezed inside of Felline's chest, her previous triumph fading. She couldn't help with this. The clerics – their sorcery – their wisdom – what could her limited tech do here? Not a thing.

Taking a deep breath, Lion-O drew the Sword, and put it up to his eyes. With a new note in his voice, he intoned, "Sword of Omens, give me Sight Beyond Sight."

An eerie growl. The Sword responded, the Eye awoke, and Lion-O's irises glowed blue.

Felline watched his face, fascinated. He looked so noble like that, communing with the ancient blade. Then he gasped and jerked it away from his eyes and became his normal seventeen-year-old self. Although they couldn't see what he had, they all knew the spell had worked when the Sword snapped into its compact form and returned to its slumber.

"There's a _switch_," he said tensely, sheathing the Sword in the Gauntlet. He then knelt at the edge of the cliff.

He leaned recklessly far, stretching down, claws digging into the dirt to keep his balance. "I can't reach it."

The rest of them crowded around, peering at the vertical wall of rock. Was that it – that square of tarnished bronze glinting in the sun? It was eight feet directly below them.

Felline looked up at the swish of a whip. Unsmiling, Tygra said in an amused voice that didn't match his flinty expression, "Allow me."

He expertly swung his arm, and the three-tailed whip lashed over the edge with a crack. There was a click and the grinding of metal into stone.

With quick, practiced flicks of his wrist, Tygra coiled the blue whip. They waited for something to happen.

Across the canyon, a part of the waterfall erupted outward.

It was a blue cat head, twin to the one that used to adorn Cat's Lair, emerging from behind the waterfall. Two smaller cat heads followed as a wide marble arch slid smoothly into place, parting the curtains of water to either side, revealing the vine covered entrance to the Tower of Omens at last.

Felline couldn't stop the sound of awe that escaped her. From the steamy depths of the jungle below, three enormous pillars of rock rose, forming a half mile bridge right to the Tower.

Cheetara glanced at her sidelong, and Felline bristled at her expression. _If that's not magic_, it said, right before Cheetara turned to follow their king and her yellow hair hid her face, _then you're a fool_.

* * *

_**A/N: **It seems to me that SOMEBODY doesn't know how to make friends. hehe_

_Greetings, Dear Readers! How is everyone today?_

_I'm so happy I got through the traps - I always felt like Tygra got cheated a little, but while writing it, I realized that it's because he's made of so much awesome that he didn't need a prolonged scene (which I think is why Felline's scene bloomed over two chapters, sheesh). I do realize that I sort of doubled on Snarf's input, but really, the image of him running from the lasers was too much fun to edit out. :3_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Momochan77 **(You're a sweetie, thank you so much!), **Blacktiger93 **(Did it come out okay? And you're a sweetie, too. MWAH!), **Heart of the Demons **(Aw, thanks! :3 That's really nice of you to say), **Night Whisperer **(Aw, yeah, just the reaction I wanted! I'm the master of cheesy - I mean, uh, "tender" scenes . . . LOL. Glad you liked it! :3), **KelseyAlicia** (Thanks! How's your next chapter coming, btw? :3), **Darwin** (This isn't related to the review, but, your book came today! Yay! And thanks for reviewing :3), **Naiko20** (Awesome, thanks! *high five* :3), **Seeds of Destruction** (Here it is, hope you liked it! :3), and **Artemis zodiac** (Thank you, thank you, and fixed! :3 You too - how is your next chapter coming?). Thank you again! *bows*_

_Ever grateful,_

_Anne_


	24. A Bag of Cats, part five

It was huge. It was beautiful. Carved into the cliff face itself, a glassy red jewel captured the sun atop the tower. White stone and pillared walls admitted sunlight and the chaotic scents of the jungle. In spite of how long it had seemed they'd been trapped inside the mountain, the day was only half over.

"The Tower of Omens," Lion-O breathed into the echoing space.

"Can't believe I finally found it!" Panthro stretched his arms overhead and then grinned down at Felline, walking by his side. "Guess all it took was the right partners."

Suddenly shy, she nodded. He was right. They'd never have made it without all of their specific strengths working together. Maybe the ancients had known a thing or two about clairvoyance.

Inside the Tower, there were no rooms. Or rather, one big rotunda, sheltered from the elements by an inner sanctum wall. It was darker in there, but still warm and humid.

The ThunderCats stood in a loose semicircle at the base of a marble column. The jungle encroached even there, crawling vines describing pretty green patterns on the cracked white stone. At intervals, giant pegs pounded into the column rose helically on an inclined plane, drooping under the weight of rotten plant growth.

"The Book must be up there," Tygra said unnecessarily.

Felline counted more than eight turns of the pegs before they disappeared near the top of the column. Her ears sagged.

Cheetara, however, was smiling, and she was radiant. "You did it, Lion-O!"

"Indeed. He did," said a voice Felline had never heard before.

They all turned.

A strange, emaciated figure stood on the top of the sanctum wall with his back to the shadows, holding a lantern aloft that gave off sickly blue light. He seemed vaguely simian, with a broad, flat, wrinkled face and upturned nose, but like no monkey Felline had ever heard of, hairless and the overall color of a dirty scab. His lips skinned back from a mouthful of pointed teeth. Plus, he wore no clothes. Ragged bandages coiled about his bony limbs, trailing like the filthy red cloak pulled over his head.

But what made her back up a step were the eyes, glowing red as coals, without white or pupil.

"And it will be the last thing he ever does," the figure added.

The lantern in his claw-like hand, fashioned like a cat head holding a glass ball in its mouth, sorrowfully spoke in a withered, aged, canned voice. "I led him right to you. I'm sorry."

If she squinted, Felline could just make out the blurred features of a Thunderian cat, bearded and helmed, trapped inside the glass ball. He had a noble, wise face, with a rather aquiline nose. What –

"Jaga," Cheetara moaned, equal parts pain and hope warring across her face. "You're alive!"

Aghast, Felline stared at her. _That_? Lord Jaga, leader of the clerics, legendary sorcerer of Thundera?

The wasted figure chuckled. "Hardly," he rasped. "He's nothing but a vapor in a jar, and I have little use for him now."

With that, he flung the lantern.

"No!" Lion-O roared, but Cheetara was already on the move. Sunny afterimages dazzled the cats as she leapt beneath the fragile vessel, stretched out her paw, and nabbed Jaga's lantern out of the air. She landed badly on her side, his macabre prison cradled in her arms.

Sliding to a stop on the marble floor, she left a wide, shiny streak in the dirt. Above her, the figure snarled. A ball of purple lightning crackled to life in his leathery palm, and then jumped at Cheetara; it struck her, sweeping her into the air; she collided with the column and slid down it, her face contorted in pain, but she hadn't relinquished her hold of the lantern, and it was safely crushed to her bosom.

"Cheetara!" Lion-O yelled.

He would have run to her, but Tygra held him back.

"We have to get to the Book," he said.

Felline was already on the way, precipitated by Panthro's snagging her by the collar and tossing her in that direction. She gained the bottommost pegs just as he said, "Go!" and waved Lion-O after her.

Using her paws as well as her feet, Felline propelled herself upward as if her tail was on fire, and heard Panthro roughly say, "Mumm-Ra's _mine_."

Her breath whistled past her teeth, and she levered herself upright, leaping from peg to peg for all she was worth. Some creaked worryingly under her weight, groaned under Lion-O, and splintered beneath Tygra. Any moment, the old wood could give way and send one of them plummeting to a messy death, but nobody slowed.

Mumm-Ra. He was real. She didn't doubt for a moment that's who that cloaked, sinister figure was. She could _smell_ him, a combination of sand, medicine, and corpse rot. He was _real_.

One thing burned clear in her mind: They had to reach the Book before he did.

The sounds of battle bounced upward inside the Tower, grunts, growls, snarls, the rattling chain of Panthro's nunchucks, and further bursts of Mumm-Ra's sorcery. Oh, gods, where were the twins? She didn't hear them behind her, only the heavy breathing of the king and his brother.

"This bag of bones is no match for Panthro!" the general boasted, without a trace of a smile in his voice.

The pegs were still leading them higher. Tiring, Felline started panting, and it was the loudest sound in the world. Yet she heard when Mumm-Ra shrieked, ". . . _into Mumm-Ra, the Ever Living_!"

Deafening thunder bounced from wall to wall, followed by a screech that could have woken the dead. Maybe it had. Cold purple-black fire whooshed by Felline, followed quickly by thick bolts of purple lightning that ruffled her fur, and she missed the next peg. With a breathless squeak, she threw herself forward, catching it under her arms.

The peg shuddered as Lion-O passed her, one paw on the column for balance. She watched him follow the curve, and then Tygra was there, picking her up. They started running again, this time with Tygra in the lead and Felline hot on his heels.

The screeches went on and on, deep and bloodthirsty and _huge_ – in a second, Felline saw why.

Mumm-Ra had grown, transformed from the half dead creature she'd seen before into a giant of muscle and sinew, flying upward at a terrifying pace with the aid of the bat's wings that had sprouted from his back. He opened his cavernous mouth and vomited a beam of purple energy.

It blew apart the wooden pegs beneath Felline. Screaming, she flailed for a pawhold amid a cloud of choking sawdust, splinters, and burning moss, but she was falling. Mumm-Ra flew past her as if she was nothing more than a chunk of wood.

Her claws squealed against marble, tearing through the vines. She was brought up short when her paws dipped into one of the square holes that used to hold a peg. Mumm-Ra had blasted through so many of them that it would be impossible to reach the top of the Tower that way.

"Ow!" She blinked away the tears in her eyes, staring up through the settling dust, and dug her toes into one of the cracks marring the smooth marble column. That was better. Sort of.

The fiend was right above her, soaring after the retreating form of Lion-O.

Then, inexplicably, he stopped, one foot outstretched.

He thundered his displeasure, wings flapping.

From the empty space below his foot, a green-white energy bolt fired at his face, but he blocked it with one hand and it ricocheted.

_Tygra_.

Mumm-Ra spat his own purple energy and it broke apart into tongues of electricity, fizzling out Tygra's invisibility spell. He reappeared, grimacing. Although Mumm-Ra managed to dislodge him, he snapped his whip like a fly fisher his line and captured the fiend's other ankle.

"You won't shake me that easily!"

Grunting, Panthro reached Felline, pulling himself upward one pawhold at a time, a kitten hanging from either scarred shoulder, Snarf from his sash. She gave them a smile that felt like a wince, relieved nonetheless that they were all okay.

Mumm-Ra, however, was furious. The bolt he regurgitated was the largest yet, catching Tygra in the midsection. The blue whip unraveled and he plummeted, screaming.

* * *

_**A/N: **Everyone, I am so sorry for the delay in updating! Christmas things have been keeping me busy, not to mention a couple of birthdays this past week. I promise, all of you that I owe reviews, I shall get to you soon. I haven't forgotten you! Until then, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Mumm-Ra is so wicked. He's a hoot to write, hehe._

_Reviewer Thanks! **Heart of the Demons **(w00t w00t! Thanks for reviewing!), **Blacktiger93 **(Yes, drama. *rubs hands together* Much drama shall be forthcoming! I miss Bastien, though. :( He was fun. Felline is so SERIOUS. Thankie for the review!), **Night Whisperer **(YAY! That is so super helpful to know what works [just as much as what doesn't]. Thank you so very much!), **KelseyAlicia **(Awesome, thank you!), **Naiko20** (Thank you, glad you liked it!), **Darwin** (*giggle* You know it! ;) Thankie, chica), **Momochan77** (I've been having a hard time with Cheetara/Felline, to be honest. I myself like Cheetara loads, but I don't want Felline to just yet - she's kind of hot and cold with everyone at this point, but their relationship, IMO, is the most tricky. *tears hair out* lol. Thanks for reviewing!), **WAR-Operative** (Welcome back! You've left me some very awesome reviews. :3 Ch8: I remember when I first watched that episode, I was enthralled by the themes of war, and maybe felt a bit shortchanged that it wasn't explored farther. I was betting my readers were, too - seems I was right! :3 Ch10: Whew, I was a little scared I was taking TOO much creative license with Jorma, but if he came off as believable, YAY! Ch12: Oh, to answer your question, I was thinking hybrid animal, like the froog and my made up skirlls. I changed it a tiny bit, so that "meece" is singular and "meeces" plural, which should be just silly enough to clue in future readers [I hope, lol]. Many many many thanks! :3), **IrishBug74** (Welcome, thanks for the review!), **Mooncloudpanther** (Ch19: LOL, I take it I need more fluff. *giggle* Ch23: I'm glad you liked it! :3 Thankies!), and **Artemis zodiac** (Hrmmm . . . that is a most excellent question! The two that pop immediately to mind are the Cheshire Cat from "American McGee's Alice," and Mogget from "Sabriel." Does that help? Thanks for the review!). Whew, was that ever a mouthful! :3 And I loved every minute of it! Thank you all, from the bottom of my shy little heart!_

_Yours Sincerely,_

_Anne_


	25. A Bag of Cats, part six

In an incredible display of strength, Panthro reached out and seized Tygra's ankle, his other three sets of claws still wedged into the cracks running through the column, arresting the tiger mid-fall.

"Yeah!" WilyKat and Kit chorused.

Muscles burning, Felline scuttled closer and helped the shaken Tygra right himself, and now Panthro was carrying four. She and the big cat shared a look of determination, and slowly, agonizingly, they crawled higher. Lion-O was alone up there, with no one between him and Mumm-Ra.

"_Rraahh_!" Mumm-Ra reached the top a split second after Lion-O. Although they couldn't see what was happening, they could hear it thanks to the acoustics of the Tower. "The Book of Omens and its power belong to me!"

Lion-O's response was, "_Thundercats,_ _HO_!"

Blue-white lightning sought out every dark shadow in the Tower and banished it. Clinging to the stone so far below, Felline went rigid. Next to her, the others did the same. The Sword and the Eye were speaking to them. She could hear its otherworldly voices, feel its need in every bone of her body. Querying. Questing. Rejecting.

And then it released her. The Sword had made its choice.

Still clutching Jaga's lantern so far below, Cheetara woke and stood. For just a brief moment, her eyes flashed yellow.

If they'd thought her fast before, it was nothing compared to what she did next, in thrall to the Sword.

Bypassing the column and its rotten pegs entirely, Cheetara began to run around the rotunda. Quicker than lightning, she angled for the sanctum wall and ran up it as if gravity was something she could turn on or off at will with her speed. Spiraling upward, she shot by Felline and Panthro without glancing at them. Felline and the kittens cheered her on, laughing. The Sword had chosen its best champion. Mumm-Ra couldn't beat that. They were going to win. They just _had_ to.

"Close that mouth," Panthro rumbled suddenly. "You're drooling."

Surprised, Felline looked at him. He was grinning wickedly at Tygra, who, hanging from the panther's shoulder with eyes as huge as a kitten's, closed his mouth.

Kat and Kit burst out laughing at the embarrassed prince, and even Felline smiled. Poor Tygra. Mumm-Ra had probably scrambled his brains a little, and Cheetara still seemed deliberately oblivious to how he felt about her.

She soon sobered, though, and resumed her climb. Had Bastien felt that way about her?

It would have been nice to get to spend a little more time with him.

"There," Panthro grunted.

"I see it," she responded, and hefted herself onto one of the unharmed pegs at last. Holding out her arms, she beckoned to the kittens. Kit hopped into her embrace first, and then she caught Kat. Tygra climbed up next, and finally Panthro. They all began running again, toward the bangs, booms, and crackles, the forbidding light strobing off the walls – and with a yell, Cheetara skidded to the edge of the column and tumbled over the side, barely catching herself on the edge. Her arms were empty.

Watching her dangle above them, Kit let out a squeal.

"Go, move!" Tygra yelled, taking the lead. With his longer legs, he was able to take the pegs two at a time and disappeared around the curve.

"I've got you!" Lion-O called.

He didn't make it to her. The sound that tore out of him then was so full of pain that it frightened Felline like nothing else ever had. What was worse was when it stopped. Abruptly.

Felline listened, straining her ears, hoping for – what? A breath? A groan? More screams? _Anything_ to indicate that he was still alive.

Mumm-Ra laughed.

"You are much like your father," he said.

"What do you know of my father?" Lion-O gasped, his voice raw.

"Only that I killed him!"

And with that, Lion-O's screams resumed.

Calling his name, Felline unknowingly stopped running, but his agonized yells went on and on. Whimpering, she threw her arms over her head, trying to block her ears. Tears flowed unchecked down her face.

What could they do against this? How could they win against such evil, that laughed uproariously while it tortured? How badly would the fiend hurt them before he killed them?

She was so _scared_.

Then, suddenly, the screams changed. Bright light blinded her, but it was different than the trap on the other side of the canyon, less artificial, less cold. There seemed to be a presence behind it, kind and wise, offering wordless comfort.

The screams belonged to Mumm-Ra.

"_The light_!" he howled, his voice laced with terror. He kept shrieking, the sound pitching ever higher, and then it cut off with a pop. A bird cawed. "_The Book will be mine_!" he screamed, and the bird's cawing grew fainter. Then it was gone.

He was _gone_. And so was the light.

Feeling strangely empty, Felline reached the top of the column just as Lion-O helped Cheetara to sit. A piece of broken glass fell, tinkling, and Cheetara's face broke. She looked as if she might cry.

Surreptitiously, Felline scrubbed her cheeks dry.

He was okay. Lion-O was all right, if a little mussed. But his blue eyes were big and young again, because the lantern had been smashed.

"Jaga," he mourned.

Ever so gently, Cheetara gathered the broken lantern in her arms and sat there hugging it, her face dry but her voice full of tears. "He sacrificed himself for you," she said quietly. "For all of us."

They bowed their heads, Lion-O, Panthro, Tygra, and Felline; the kittens were holding hands. Kit picked up Snarf and rubbed her face into his fur.

"Hey," Kat said.

A tiny yellow light, like a firefly, drifted out of the shattered glass globe. Twinkling, it rose between Tygra and Panthro, and then floated back down to hover in front of Cheetara.

"Look," Tygra whispered, and she opened her eyes.

The tiny light bobbed toward Felline, and then drifted past the kittens. Finally, it moved toward Lion-O.

Then, as if it had greeted them all, it rose up. There, suspended in a stone chandelier, or cage, a red book floated. Felline gasped. It was the Book. The little light merged with it, the structure shuddered, and then the whole thing lowered without a sound.

Everybody looked at Lion-O.

Squaring his shoulders, the young king approached the chandelier-cage, reached in with both paws, and lightly lifted the Book out. The red jewel set in its cover flashed as if in recognition and then went dark.

With a smile, Lion-O turned back. "At long last," he said, and opened the cover, "we have all the answers."

He said nothing for a full minute, eyes trained on the pages.

"Well?" Tygra demanded eagerly. "What does it say?"

"It says –" Lion-O started, and then stopped. His brows knitted. He lowered the Book, horror shining in his eyes. "Nothing. It's _blank_."

* * *

_**A/N: **Greetings, Dear Readers! Psst. CHRISTMAS IS COMING! I do celebrate it, and I'm very excited. I love Christmas morning with everybody opening presents and making a mess in their jammies. :3 And then eating breakfast off paper plates while sitting in a pile of wrapping paper . . . *cough*_

_Anyway! Note to self: Do not drink caffeinated tea. Ever. I am a human gas molecule! BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ!_

_Yeah, this chapter came out way shorter than I expected. Oops. But since next chapter goes off on a different subject, I decided to leave it here. I'm so sorry I didn't get to let Felline take some shots at Mumm-Ra! She will. I promise. It just didn't fit here. I didn't get to show a lot of the battle (including Cheetara's crowning moment of awesome when she kicked that bastard in the face). Instead I focused on how they all kept getting brushed aside because they really do have a long way to go. Plus, this way, I got to put in the BEST line of the whole show. ^_^ Too cute!_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Darwin **(Thank you!), **Blacktiger93 **(Thank you! I do hope I can do some more before the holiday . . . "Legacy" is going to be tricky, I haven't decided how I'll handle that yet, to tell you the truth. Hmmmm . . .), **Naiko20 **(*sniffle* I'm sorry! I did try, but it just didn't feel right. BUT, glad you liked my description of Mumm-Ra - purple vomit, HO! :3), **Heart of the Demons **(Yeah, she didn't. LOL. Useless girl! :3 Heehee), **KelseyAlicia** (Thank you, you too!), **Momochan77** (Thank you so much! :3), **Mooncloudpanther** (Thankies! :3), **Night Whisperer** (*hides* No, see, I failed in that. Felline just didn't have it in her this time. However, the fact that she didn't will definitely crop up again next chapter, so I hope that's a nice balance. Anyway, I'm thrilled you liked the chapter! :3 Thank you!). Happy Saturday, my friends! Thanks again!_

_I know I still have some more reviews to catch up on. :3 Also, Artemis, I got your PM and I'll get back to you soon! I'm thinking about what you sent. :3_

_Anne_


	26. Hellcat, part one

"What happened up there?" Panthro rumbled.

It took several seconds of nobody answering for Felline to realize he was talking to her. She looked up in surprise.

"You choked," he explained, not meeting her eye. They were descending to the Tower floor, Kit and Kat hopping down the pegs in front of them, a limping Cheetara bringing up the rear. "You can't fall apart like that in a fight. It's a good way to get yourself and your friends killed."

Face warming uncomfortably, Felline put her ears back. She knew exactly to what he was referring, but what was he saying? That she'd wimped out? Well, so what if she had? For the umpteenth time since that morning, she'd thought they were all going to die. Facing Mumm-Ra and hearing him torture Lion-O had been ten times worse than confronting her father that last day, helplessly listening to her sister's screams. And even if she'd _choked_, as Panthro had so delicately put it, what could she possibly have done differently? She was no sorcerer. She'd wanted to reach the Book as badly as any of them, but she'd been dangling a few hundred feet off the floor, in case he hadn't noticed. It wasn't like her rifle was a one handed weapon. What was she supposed to have done, pulled the trigger with her teeth? How about her toes? Besides, they'd both seen how effective Tygra's shots had been against that monster. Worse than useless!

An unpleasant thought occurred to her. Was that what everyone thought of _her_? That she was useless?

Even the Sword of Omens had obviously decided she was. Felline's tail swished irritably from side to side, her fingers curling into fists, while she followed the kittens to the dusty Tower floor without really seeing anything. If there had been any way for her to accomplish their goal, the Sword would have chosen her instead of Cheetara. Panthro had heard the voices, too. He had to know that.

The general watched her seethe, his wide mouth turned down at the corners in his customary scowl. "You really _don't_ talk much, do you?"

"What do you want me to say?" she snapped, turning on him so abruptly that he stopped walking, staring down at her with one eyebrow raised. "I'm sorry, all right? I'm sorry that no one taught me to fight!"

Panthro's face gained in austerity, the same eyebrow twitching, and Felline was abruptly aware that he was about four times as big as she was, all hard muscle beneath his scarred fur.

"And whose fault is that?" he rumbled.

"Whose faul - . . ." She trailed off, spluttering. Whose _fault_? Everyone's! She was the daughter of a palace guard, one of the Thunderian nobility. Genteel, moderately educated, born to marry well and raise a family. She had not been bred for warfare.

"Ooo, watch out, Panthro," Kat said, bounding back to them, avidly watching Felline struggle to untangle her tongue.

"Yeah. You don't want her to go off again," Kit added, covering her ears with a theatrical grimace. "She's kinda loud."

"Like a gaw rak rak . . ."

". . . or the ramlak."

They burst out laughing, pointing at each other and positively howling at their impressions of Felline as the ramlak. Their young voices echoed throughout the rotunda. If Tygra and Lion-O hadn't been paying attention before, they were now.

Mortified, Felline glared at the twins. Why were they making fun of her? If her words were of so little value, then she wouldn't say anything at all!

With a sigh, Panthro knocked each kitten in the skull with knuckles hard as rocks. Shutting up, Kat held his head, tears threatening in his big yellow eyes, while his sister sniffled into her balled fists.

"You're not bad with that," the general continued as if there had been no interruption, gesturing at the rifle strapped to Felline's thigh. "If things had been different, I'd have recommended you for the army. You have talent. But that's not going to help you or anyone else if the enemy closes in. Gets past your guard. Like today."

"So it's _my_ fault that I can't fight?" Felline exclaimed, forgetting that she wasn't going to talk anymore. He wasn't being fair! Her father had given her a good education, but unfortunately the curriculum for high born girls didn't include learning how to bash each other's skulls in. Snow had been extremely reluctant to even allow archery lessons, but Lepra had begged so hard -

"You could always ask to be taught," Panthro said dryly.

Cheetara, who had been listening the whole time, now came forward. " 'To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life.' These are the words of my teacher," she told them.

Panthro rolled his mismatched eyes heavenward. "Isn't that what I just said?"

"I could teach you hand to hand combat, if you like," Cheetara went on, ignoring him. She smiled at Felline, obviously thinking herself generous, but Felline stared woodenly back.

At this, the twins recovered. "Could you teach us, too?" WilyKat asked eagerly.

"Of course," Cheetara said, still smiling. She put a hand on her hip. "I think you two could become very good fighters in time."

"Yeah!" WilyKit cried. She threw a punch at her brother. "WilyKit and Kat, the greatest fighters on Third Earth!"

"Bow before our might!" Kat added.

A scuffle ensued, the giggling kittens engaging in a mock fight that turned a little too enthusiastic.

Felline was already edging away. The need to get out, to get away, was overpowering. The last she saw of them was Cheetara separating the kittens with her staff, and Panthro looking on with his arms folded across his massive chest.

..::~*~::..

Sunset, when viewed from the middle of the rock bridge, was beautiful. So high above the canyon, she could see for what seemed like hundreds of miles, each one burning beneath the huge, orange disc of the sun. When it melted over the eastern horizon, the tiny white Cheshire moon took its place in the starry sky, her sister Leo hovering over the western mountain peaks.

A symphony gained life in the jungle beneath her: Hoots, whistles, rattles, buzzes, snarls, and wordless songs all jumbled together as the night creatures went about their business. Not that Felline had been idle. A small pile of what she'd dubbed _snake-birds_ lay next to her, their pink serpentine bodies topped with beaked heads and downy wings. They didn't seem particularly smart, for she'd brought them easily down with her rifle as they swooped around her, hunting insects. She thought they might prove edible - Panthro would know.

Growing chilly in the deepening night, she gathered her catch, stringing them together. It was time to return. The sunset and the open air had cleared her head, and she knew it was stupid to remain out there alone.

No sooner had she thought this than a huge beast shot from beneath the lip of the rock bridge, its jaws clamping shut on a hapless snake-bird right in front of her. Leathery skin flapping, the wing-ed water snake soared over Felline and vanished into the dark jungle below with its squealing meal.

Nervously, Felline broke into a trot, her kills bouncing on her back. That thing had been large enough to carry _her_ off, if it had wanted.

Third Earth was truly a vast, uncharted, unfriendly place, and tonight, she was feeling very small.

Maybe Panthro was right. She should be able to defend herself, at least, in more than one way. And if Cheetara was truly willing . . . there were worse teachers to have than one of Jaga's clerics.

Maybe then, the Sword of Omens might choose her as a champion of the ThunderCats, instead of dismissing her as it had done.

The others had built a fire. Its flickering, roseate light illuminated the Tower's columns from within, turning white marble orange. Its warmth beckoned, and she jogged the last few feet, ready to put this eternal day to rest. Mist gathered in her fur as she stepped beneath the cat head overhang.

Even muffled by the thunder of the divided waterfall, shining like crystal beneath the moons as it poured endlessly over the cliff, she heard him sigh.

Lion-O.

He stood with his back to her, his spiky red mane turned black by the night, staring out at the steamy jungle much as she had done. At his side, held loosely in one paw, the metal bindings of the Book glinted. While she watched, he opened it yet again, as if this time he could surprise the secrets within, catch them before they slithered out of sight and left the pages crisp, clean, and blank.

She hesitated outside the Tower. Should she go to him, or not?

Not, she decided finally. He didn't like her. He preferred Cheetara over any cat under his command. That much was perfectly clear. Besides, she hadn't even apologized yet for yelling at him - was it only that morning? It felt like it had been years.

Ducking her head, she turned to go in, and nearly bumped into the solid wall that was Panthro.

He stared down at her. Wordless, she held up the string of snake-birds.

"That's a welcome sight," he approved, softening at once. He held the string up to the light, letting the pink serpents revolve slowly. "There's good eating on one of these."

His deep voice echoed around the lofty Tower, its naturalness forced. He wasn't going to bring it up, then. Ashamed of her behavior, Felline spoke as quietly as she could.

"I was afraid."

Panthro didn't look at her, but he put a heavy paw on her shoulder. "Yeah," he murmured. "We all were."

"Even you?" she whispered. He'd taken on Mumm-Ra by himself, giving the others a head start; she'd assumed it was his hatred of the creature, and of Grune's betrayal, that had made him fearless.

"Even me," he rumbled. "But I'm not gonna die that easy."

She thought about it, and then she nodded. Courage would come later. Now, she had to focus on learning what she could to keep herself alive. Like him.

Together, they went inside to tell the others that dinner was served.

..::~*~::..

By the next afternoon, Felline had compiled a list of why she didn't actually like martial arts, the foremost of which were the bruises blooming beneath her fur.

Cheetara had her and the kittens practice form, showing them techniques and skills one at a time, pushing them through the motions. That hadn't been so bad. But then, sometime around her talking about accuracy - visualizing where they wanted their strike to land - Lion-O disappeared with the Book. He climbed the pegs to the top of the Tower with Snarf, and the rest of them moved their training outside, where, to Felline's dismay, Cheetara threw their techniques back at them. Punching the air was one thing. Having it hit back was quite another.

The day wore on, and it was all about repetition. Do it again. And again. Panthro fell asleep, his soft snores punctuating the gasps and short hisses of the kittens as they dodged Cheetara's staff, trying to get a hit in. They were really improving, working so seamlessly together they were like one entity. Felline wasn't doing as well - she knew which fighting style she preferred, and it wasn't this. Jealously, she eyed Tygra, who was cleaning his pistol.

Waiting her next turn with the she-beast, whose limp had vanished, leaving her long, lean, and dangerous once again, Felline shuffled toward the prince, holding her sore elbow.

Just then, Snarf bolted out of the Tower and skidded to a stop at her feet, yowling.

"What is it?" Tygra asked, instantly alert.

_Snyar snyar_, Snarf said.

Panthro jerked awake, and the kittens and Cheetara came running.

_Snyaa_, Snarf wailed.

Although he was Lion-O's pet, Tygra had spent the most time around the little creature next to his brother and seemed to understand that something was wrong. One look at the prince's alarmed face, and Cheetara was off, disappearing into the Tower. Snarf followed her as fast as his short legs could take him.

"Come on," Tygra said grimly, holstering his pistol.

So up they climbed again, to the top of the Tower, where the afternoon sun streamed unchecked through the stone latticework of the ceiling. Lion-O lay flat on his back, unmoving, the Book several feet away, its covers still closed.

The sight of him lying there, so still, made Felline's heart crawl into her mouth, but no one seemed to want to get close enough to touch him. Snarf, WilyKit and Kat, and Felline all bent over him. Felline thought she could detect the faint rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

So he wasn't dead. Was he asleep?

She glanced at Snarf, who was shivering ever so slightly in the hot sunlight. No, it was more than that.

They bent nearer.

His face was at peace. There was no sign of blood or any kind of struggle. What could have happened? Did it have something to do with the Book? What were they supposed to do?

With a cry, Lion-O jerked and his blue eyes popped open. Startled, Felline held her breath.

He blinked once. Twice. Looked around without moving his head. Blinked again, and saw them crowded around his body.

Life and intelligence returned to his face. Painfully, as if he'd been the one getting whacked about the shins by Cheetara's staff all day, he sat up.

_Myao_, Snarf said in a small voice.

Lion-O stood up, and Felline backed off, but he wasn't looking at her. His eyes were on the sky, visible through the Tower's roof.

"I know what we have to do," he said.

* * *

_**A/N: **Hello, Dear Readers! How was your Christmas? I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday._

_Number one: I am so sorry this update has taken so long! I've been hugely busy and haven't had any time for writing, which has made me so sad. But I think I've said this before, and recently. LOL. At any rate, I'm back, and I hope the updates will pick up again._

_Number two: I know I've said this before - we writers are so impressionable! I (vaguely) knew already how I wanted to handle "Legacy" when I first started writing CC, but the exact wording didn't form until three comments by (I believe) WAR-Operative, Blacktiger93, and Heart of the Demons all meshed together in my head with the two second scene of Cheetara training the kittens at the beginning of the episode, and this is the result! :3 Reviews are really an awesome source of inspiration. Who knew? :3_

_Number three: Panthro fluff! Yep. Expect more of it._

_Number four: Gaw rak rak, snake-birds, and the wing-ed water snake: Totally stolen from the original series. And Cheetara's quote is Buddha's. Because that's how I roll._

_Reviewer Thanks! **Blacktiger93 **(Here you go, thanks for the earworm!), **Mooncloudpanther **(:3 I thought I'd die of the cuteness), **Darwin **(Thank you!), **KelseyAlicia **(Yay, thank you!), **Heart of the Demons** (LOL, poof, it's fixed! :3), **Night Whisperer** (Yes, plot device! That's the plan, anyway :3), **Momochan77** (Aw, thanks - she'll appreciate the vote of confidence!), **Naiko20** (Thank you!), and **WAR-Operative** (Most excellent points, even if they are from ch 14, and I hope I did address them here!). Thank you for reviewing! Group hug!_

_Anne_


	27. Hellcat, part two

"So . . . we aren't from Third Earth?" Felline timidly asked, the first thing she had said directly to Lion-O since the Book had returned his spirit to his body. She was having a hard time digesting his story, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to ask him anything before now. She was still too irritated with him.

"No. My ancestor, before he became the first Lord of the ThunderCats, served Mumm-Ra aboard his ship, the _Black Pyramid_," Lion-O answered amicably enough. He'd been surprisingly talkative after he'd woken from the Book's spell the day before – the Book which, it turned out, was a fusion of technology and sorcery, containing both the disembodied spirit of Jaga and records of the past that only Lion-O could access.

Not that Felline minded. She glanced up at him, his profile etched against the backdrop of dead, leafless trees bordering the road. The hard packed clay road was as dry as the jungle had been humid, and she took a thoughtful sip from her canteen. She had no desire to shoulder someone else's identity, or to live someone else's memories from hundreds of years in the past, as he apparently had. Frankly, the whole idea scared her. So did the thought of traveling up there, beyond the clouds in the sky, in a – "Ship?" she asked next. "Like Captain Tunar's flying ship?"

"No." He grinned down at her, the old fire of tech alight in his eyes. Pretty eyes. She returned her own to the trees, the black slash of a crow breaking up the monochromatic tableau. "A spaceship. It traveled between the stars."

Troubled, she watched her feet on the unnamed road, her paws wrapped around the straps of her borrowed pack. It didn't fit well, having been made for a lizard. If the ThunderCats didn't belong to Third Earth, where _had_ they come from? Stretching her imagination to its limit, she didn't – _couldn't_ – believe their species might have lived on Leo – the gas giant named for the very ancestor that had brought about the rebellion on the _Black Pyramid_ and caused it to crash land on Third Earth, thus stranding the cats and all the other animals aboard, barely leaving enough of them alive to restart civilization – but according to Lion-O, the ship had come from much farther away than even the moons, conquering whole solar systems – a term that encompassed a single sun and the planets that surrounded it –

Felline grimaced. He was still talking, describing the cell blocks on the ship, the collars programmed to explode should their wearers put a toe out of line. Trying to absorb this alien way of life made her stomach hurt. Wasn't Third Earth big enough without bringing a whole universe from the bowels of Mumm-Ra's lair along with it?

Monkeys, tigersharks, elephants, lizards, vultures and birds, jackals and dogs – they had all been enslaved to Mumm-Ra, but he had seemed to favor the cats, using them to enforce his control over the lesser animals, positioning them in his armies as his generals, flitting from world to world to collect –

". . . the Power Stones," Lion-O said. He drew the Sword of Omens, turning it so the sunlight winked off the quiescent Eye of Thundera. Felline hadn't had an opportunity of studying it this close before. It looked like a round red eye, lidless, with a cat's slitted pupil, which was oddly transparent, like a seed suspended in gelatin, or a flaw within the crystal itself. "Leo led a rebellion and won this: The War Stone. There were blacksmiths, cats, who created the Sword and the Gauntlet of Omens in secret, which he used to take the other Stones from Mumm-Ra and imprison him inside his sarcophagus. . . ."

Which Grune had then opened. That much, Felline got. The ship, the _Black Pyramid_, had been lying in wait in the desert ever since it crashed, a sealed but ominous ruin, until Mumm-Ra's evil sorcery had managed to latch onto the power hungry mind of the Thunderian general, promising Grune a kingdom to rule or destroy as he saw fit in return for his, Mumm-Ra's, freedom. Panthro had told them as much.

She sighed. Lion-O was walking with new confidence, fierce pride in something none of them had witnessed turning his whole aspect around. Which was nice, but . . .

"We have to find them," he said, returning the Sword to its resting place on his hip. "We have to get the other three Stones before Mumm-Ra does. They were scattered, each Stone claimed by a different species. Without the Stones, he's just a sack of old bones, but with them, he could conquer the whole planet. It's up to us to stop him. We can't let him destroy Third Earth."

"Yeah, that's what you said yesterday," she mumbled, tired now of the subject. Most of this was a repeat of yesterday's monologue.

Because he'd made it clear that he didn't want to be here, alone with her. _And guess what_? she thought. _The feeling is mutual._

..::~*~::..

Finding a way back to the ThunderTank from the Tower of Omens had taken the rest of the afternoon and a good chunk of the evening. Since they now possessed the Book of Omens, they'd been able to pass safely through the mountain, its traps destroyed or disabled.

When the last stone door closed behind them, Felline looked back at the carved lion head once, and then squared her shoulders and left the whole experience behind forever.

Later, Lion-O explained how, on the _Black Pyramid_, Leo and Mumm-Ra had used the Book as a sort of technological dowsing rod to locate the Power Stones across the galaxy. He talked late into the night as they sat around a fire, the kittens napping against Felline's sides. Felline wasn't sure whose idea it was to hook the Book up to the Tank like a jury-rigged navigational system, but Panthro and Tygra took up the task of figuring out how, arguing.

"We need supplies," Lion-O said at last, when they'd more or less settled on a game plan. "I'll go tomorrow, find a town."

"I'll go with you," Cheetara offered, glowing in the firelight, and he puffed up as though he'd just defeated Mumm-Ra single-handedly.

That was when Felline went to bed.

The next morning, however, WilyKit woke with a fever.

Kat hung over his sister worriedly as Cheetara used her magic to put Kit back to sleep. "Is it bad?" he asked.

"She'll be all right," Cheetara told him gently. "She just needs rest."

"We'll have to get medicine while we're at it," Lion-O said quietly, so as not to disturb the shallowly-breathing kitten. "You ready?"

Cheetara looked up at him, eyebrows raised, her paw still resting on Kit's tiny chest. "You're not thinking of going, are you?"

"Yeah." He paused. "I'm going to guess you don't think that's a good idea. Why not?"

"I can't leave her." Cheetara hopped out of the Tank, shaking her sunny hair over her shoulder. "And you can't go alone. It's too dangerous. Mumm-Ra's army could be anywhere."

She'd said the wrong thing. Lion-O frowned, his ego dented. "I can handle anything out there."

"She's right, Lion-O," Tygra called from the Tank's cockpit. "It's too risky. Besides, it's not like you're strong enough to carry everything back by yourself."

"What was that?" Lion-O swelled like a blue thunderhead.

"Wait until tomorrow," Cheetara said soothingly, cutting across Lion-O's angry retort. She laid a paw on his arm, leaning close. Felline was sure her fingers weren't the only things pressed against him right then.

"There's no reason he can't go today. After all, we don't have time to wait." Tygra's striped head appeared.

Cheetara frowned up at him. "What are you suggesting?"

Grinning, Tygra gestured with a screwdriver. "Take her."

It was Felline's turn to look up from where she sat cross-legged on the ground, brows knit over the red lenses of her goggles. Her lap was full of tangled cords and various tools as well as the Book of Omens, the red jewel set in its front cover dark. Panthro had entrusted her with it, and she was busy plugging and unplugging wires and jacks pulled from the side of the Tank, scanning the readout flashing across her goggles, searching for the right combination to power the artifact.

"No, no, no." Panthro scooted feet first from under the Tank. He sat up, grease smeared in his fur. "I need her here. There's too much work to do."

As if in agreement, something inside the Tank gave a cough, then a screech, and then, with an alarming _snap_, the engine died. Again. Cursing, Panthro dove out of sight.

Gratitude to the old cat rushed through Felline, warming her to the tips of her toes. But then Tygra leaned over the side of the Tank and said, "Come on, we don't need her. I've got it handled," and Felline made a face at his backside, ears lowered. So much for being a respected member of the team.

"You do?" Panthro rumbled, slightly muffled. A series of knocks and bangs issued from beneath the Tank. A long, slow drip of motor oil crawled across the ground like a glistening black slug. "Could have fooled me. She stays."

"No, Tygra's right. She should go with Lion-O," Cheetara said, surprising Felline. Immediately, Tygra straightened and his grin returned full force. The cleric smiled sweetly. "It only makes sense. As a protector of the crown, I can't allow him to travel without an escort."

"Some escort," Lion-O said flatly. Displeasure was clear in the tilt of his mouth, but Felline could tell it originated in Cheetara backing out of their cozy little excursion together, which he had probably seen as some kind of date. He looked just like one of the endless toms that used to pester Lepra. "She's not going to be much help carrying anything."

Cheetara wasn't a shy tom, to be put off by a single rebuff. "Why not?" she asked him, her orange eyes steady, fully expecting an answer as she would from any rational adult.

Which he wasn't.

"_Look_ at her," Lion-O snapped. Then he finally seemed to remember that Felline was in earshot. His eyes slid toward her, and a faint blush darkened the cream of his cheek. "N-no, it's nothing, I just . . ."

"Great, then it's settled," Tygra decided, taking advantage of his brother's momentary confusion. "Here, take this." And he emerged from the Tank with an empty pack in paw, which he shoved at Felline.

She hadn't moved. She was still holding the snarl of wires and the Book, her goggles flashing a query prompt at her. _Don't I get a say_?

Apparently not. Lower lip thrust out, Lion-O hefted his own pack, already filled with enough of their remaining supplies to see two cats through the next few days, if they rationed everything. How carefully had he chosen what went in it, for Cheetara's sake? "Let's go, already. I want to get moving sometime this year."

Angrily, Felline stood, gathering up her tools. Lion-O wasn't waiting for her.

"Don't forget the analog process valve!" Panthro yelled after them.

"We know," Lion-O called back, rolling his eyes.

"And the pump with alarming!"

"We know!" Felline said impatiently, turning off her goggles and settling them around her neck as she stalked after Lion-O.

"And the mixer –"

"_We know_!"

..::~*~::..

Although she couldn't see any wildlife, a chorus of birds chirped and whistled in the trees around them. Felline and Lion-O lapsed into awkward silence. Overhead, the sun glared at them like a baleful yellow eye in a sallow, flat face. Low mountains of bare rock marched along with them in the distance.

Snarf, trotting between the two cats, was making anxious little mewling sounds. Felline couldn't blame him. This was definitely not cat country. King Claudus had kept his lands in neat order, the roads either paved or regularly maintained, the towns marked clearly on maps. Here, she and Lion-O had to work to stay _on_ the road, because sometimes it petered out without warning, leaving them stranded in a copse of withered, dead brown trees, forcing them to backtrack. She could tell Lion-O was making an effort to shorten his natural stride for her, but it made little difference at the end of the day except to wear them both out.

Felline didn't know by what specifications Lion-O was choosing their direction, but whatever his strategy, it worked. Soon enough, crude wooden fences began to mark the edges of the widening road, which in turn was showing signs of heavy use. A grassy berm sloped toward ponds of murky, stagnant water, which smelled unpleasantly of chemicals.

Abruptly, a wall rose up before them. It glinted strangely under the ocher sky, while the tall, crooked buildings dotting the cliff behind it gently breathed plumes of black smoke that turned the air an ashy gray.

Forges, Felline realized. That explained the pollution. And the wall – it bristled with thousands of blades, lashed together like knots of hay, tier upon tier of lethal weaponry left to rust in the rain. If this place ever got rain. A terrible metal skull grinned down at them from the apex of the gate, hanging in a halo of curved, corroded spikes, a pair of rapiers crossed behind it. Felline didn't know what animal it was supposed to represent, but if it was meant to intimidate her, it was succeeding. Snarf sat on her feet, trembling.

"I've heard stories about towns like this," Lion-O said, nothing in his voice but frank curiosity, "just never seen one before."

"Leave Thundera often, did you?" Felline asked peevishly. She didn't know why, but his know-it-all attitude since waking from the Book was rubbing her fur the wrong way.

Lion-O frowned at her and opened his mouth, but a brash crow beat him to it, scolding them from the wall of blades. They all jumped, and Snarf abandoned Felline to hug his master's ankle.

"Don't worry, Snarf," Lion-O said, smiling at his pet as if Felline wasn't even there. "We'll get what we need for the Tank and leave."

"Think you could . . . lend a hand . . . friend?" a voice drawled.

* * *

_**A/N: **Greetings, my fellow TTC fans! Happy New Year!_

_Let me just say that scheduling a wedding for January 4th is the brainchild of self-centered FOOLS. Seriously. So, that's what my stepbrother did. In Chicago. During that huge polar vortex that could only have been the work of Sub-Zero. It was hard flying out there on the 2nd, what with crazy delays (sitting on the tarmac for two and a half hours before takeoff), an airport that turned us away after we circled in the air for an hour, and landing not in Midway, but Milwaukee, then being told two hours after that that there were no available pilots to fly our plane and getting shoved onto a charter bus to drive us BACK to Midway._

_The wedding was lovely, though I wanted to kill my brother (I know the weather wasn't his fault, but come on! Why couldn't they have waited until June?!). Then came trying to get home on Sunday. We checked in, checked our luggage, and settled in to wait . . . and wait . . . and then the flight got canceled. Tried to book a new flight home. Got put on a nonstop for TUESDAY (which turned out to be half a lie - we went to Kansas City first). Two days stuck in Chicago! Filled out a report to get our baggage back - and MINE GOT LOST._

_Worst. Vacation. Ever._

_I did get my bag back when we landed home yesterday evening, so there's a ray of sunshine in this otherwise flawless victory against me. (Mortal Kombat, anyone?)_

_So, I didn't die and I have certainly not abandoned CC. :3 I just wasn't allowed much computer time - you know, family stuff. To make it up to all of you, this chapter is a teense longer than usual. I hope you like it!_

_Reviewer Thanks! **Darwin **(Yeah, parts of this series are more, um . . . believable? than the original, so I'm trying to stay in step with that. Glad you are enjoying what I've done so far! Thank you very much!), **KelseyAlicia **(LOL, I don't know how strong she is as a female protagonist, but it sure is fun to write about someone handing over a giant piece of her mind. *grin* Thank you!), **Naiko20 **(Right, exactly! I'm thrilled you picked up on that! Nice! XD Thank you), **Blacktiger93 **(I didn't forget about you guys, really! I love you all so much! lol. I'm finally setting up the stage for FellineXLion-O interaction, and I hope you like it. Hee! Thank you), **Momochan77** (Awesome, I'm downright ecstatic that I seem to be heading in the right direction with this. Glad you enjoyed it, and thank you!), **Heart of the Demons** (EXACTLY. That's such a hard lesson to learn. I don't think I myself have it down IRL yet, lol. Thank you!), **Night Whisperer** (That is a darn good question. It is a possibility, yes, but won't happen until my version of Season Two - which will probably be shuffled off into a sequel, because I can see CC becoming epicly long, lmao. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea . . . Thanks!), and **Mooncloudpanther** (Hee, that's great! So happy you do! :3 Thank you!). Everybody, thank you again! You continue to be my inspiration and motivation, and I can't thank you enough!_

_Anne_

_P.S. As always, thank you to those who have faved my story. :3_

* * *

_**A/N #2**: OMG. I didn't get an alert for it, but CC has been added to the C2 escape from reality. What an honor! To you who deemed my fic worthy, thank you so much!_


	28. Hellcat, part three

"Up here," the voice drawled lazily. "I seem to have snagged myself . . . again . . ."

Startled, Lion-O cast around for the speaker, but Felline located him right away: A lop-eared rabbit, the collar of his tunic hooked upon the points of the bladed wall about halfway down, looking like nothing so much as a drab, tattered patchwork quilt, flapping in the breeze.

"What are you?" Lion-O blurted, and Felline jabbed her elbow into his side. "_Who_ are you?" he hastily corrected himself.

"Just a drifter, I suppose," the rabbit said around his large front teeth. He didn't seem the least troubled by his predicament and smiled benignly down at them, a willow twig sticking out of the corner of his mouth. He hung there, blowing nearly sideways, skinny feet protruding from his short, patched pants, arms slack in the oversized tunic, making no effort to help himself.

Felline and Lion-O looked at each other; she shrugged. It was all so odd that she didn't feel anything other than confusion.

Taking her silence as a vote of confidence, Lion-O leapt up the wall, nimbly avoiding the sharp edges of meat cleavers, bladed lances, pikes, sickles, and swords of all description. He then lifted the drifter off the wall and tossed him toward Felline.

To their amazement, the rabbit drifted lackadaisically earthward, to and fro, the ends of his orange scarf fluttering. It was as if he was made of paper, boneless and weightless. Then, when he neared the fence, he came to rest stretched out on his side along the topmost rail, his head propped on his paw. Sorcery? Or a leporis trait?

Lion-O dropped to the ground and ran over. Felline followed more slowly.

Bits of trash were tangled in every inch of the long sable hair that fell in uncombed waves around the rabbit's fawn-furred face. His clothes, the red vest, brown trousers, and olive tunic, appeared to be made of fine, sturdy materials, but were so worn that they were little more than rags and tagged all over with burrs.

As if amused by her scrutiny, the drifter kept smiling, his black eyes crinkled into crescents. "Thanks for the assist," he said blandly. He had a deep, cultured voice that didn't match his filthiness at all.

"Maybe you could return the favor," Lion-O said. "We're looking for supplies."

"Find them somewhere else," the drifter responded, a sharp note entering his slow, lazy voice. "This is a swordsman's town, stranger, and they duel for keeps. Leave, before it's too late."

He hadn't lost that annoying smile. Felline glanced at the town, the bladed wall, the smoking forges. Whatever the drifter was doing there, she had a feeling he was right. They should go.

"Or don't. I don't care," the rabbit added as if he could hear her thoughts, and Felline's tail swished irritably. Was he making fun of them?

"I can handle myself all right," Lion-O said dismissively, and grinned. He drew the Sword of Omens and held it up, but the drifter had his back to them, and he merely chuckled without bothering to look.

"This town _loves_ guys like you," he drawled, rolling over, "swaggering around with your . . . fancy sword, thinking you can't lose . . . but you will. They all do."

"This is more than a fancy sword," Lion-O boasted. "It's the Sword of Omens and with it, I never lose."

"Just like I said," the drifter said in a low voice. He turned his dark eyes and fixed smile on Felline. "Take my advice and blow on out of here. Or don't. I don't care."

With that, a gust of wind picked him up and carried him off.

"He was . . . strange," Lion-O commented at last, unconsciously mimicking the drifter's manner while he sheathed the Sword.

True. As far as Felline was concerned, the matter was closed. Hitching her pack higher, she turned back down the road.

"Where are you going?" he asked from behind her, sounding surprised.

"To find another town," she returned, equally taken aback.

"Why?"

She made a noise of exasperation. Did she really have to explain it? "Because this town isn't going to have what we need."

"Are you kidding? A swordsman's town is perfect." He grinned up at the ashy sky. "They'll have materials, machinery and parts. Most of the population won't live here; it's all travelers who need food and blankets, like us. Plus, if there are as many duels here as the drifter says, there's bound to be a healer with medicine."

Felline stared at him, at a loss for words, because her habit of silence was still stronger than her need to speak. Besides, a nasty sinking in her gut told her that Lion-O was more interested in those duels – or, more accurately, the duelists with the fancy swords – than actually completing their mission. _Toms_, she thought in disgust.

Still, he was her king. She closed her mouth and bowed her head. It was not her place to disagree.

But she didn't like it. Not one bit.

..::~*~::..

The main thoroughfare was busy, bustling with scores of creatures Felline had no name for, clothed in every manner of dress and undress imaginable. They were slight and hunched, heavy-jawed and armored, tusked and hooved, beaked and shelled, impossibly tall, laughably small, tailed, scaled, hairless, furred, and predominantly male – if there were any women, Felline didn't see any.

Every creature was armed.

Swords were the most prevalent. Although she looked, she seemed to have the only gun. A bristle-chinned boar grunted in derision as she passed, as if warning her that her rifle was unwelcome there.

It was a cold, efficient sort of town, quiet and matter-of-fact. She and Lion-O drank in the sights; it was so different than Thundera before the fall, their lost white city with its fragrant gardens and parks, the festive feeling that had saturated the market streets. Yet, in spite of all the swordsmen, business here was conducted in a surprisingly non-hostile way.

They split up not long after arriving, she to seek out the parts that Panthro needed. However, though she found the necessary equipment, the vendor refused her coins.

"Don't you have any real money?" he snorted.

"What do you mean?" Felline didn't drop her hand, but the vendor was already taking her purchases off his counter and putting them away. "These are Thunderian shillings! If they aren't enough, what about this?"

Although she didn't want to part with it, in her desperation, she produced the silver ten. He gave her a wet, angry snort in reply. "No bank is going to back that piece of tin."

A few of the vendor's other customers were smirking. Pointing. Talking.

"Wait! Please!" She cast them a helpless look, but all she got in reply was rough laughter, until one purple-skinned swordsman said, "Your silver is no good here, little one. You need something with a bit more _scratch_."

What was that supposed to mean? She put her money away. "This is all I have."

But the vendor wouldn't hear her questions and walked away from her. She tried other vendors, with the same results. She couldn't even haggle for a drink of water. Stymied, she went in search of Lion-O.

She found him on the other side of the market, listening, baffled, as another staunch vendor scoffed through his beard, "And now they're relics of a fallen empire."

Empty-handed, Felline walked up to him. "You too?" she murmured.

"Happen to find any antique dealers?" he asked, proffering a coin. He gave her a wry grin and then sighed, scratching the back of his head. "So what are we gonna do for money?"

"What everyone else here does," the vendor butted in. He uncrossed his long arms to point down the street. "Sword competition."

_You're kidding_, Felline thought, ears drooping. At the end of the street, a large crowd had gathered around a shallow pit, in the middle of which sat a huge stone block, scored and chipped. As they watched, a swordsman approached it, drew his blade, and struck, creating a spray of sparks and encouraging cheers. It seemed a pretty straightforward competition, the kind of thing men dreamed up all the time – make the biggest cut, make the purse.

Then she looked over at Lion-O and suppressed a groan. _Please tell me he isn't seriously considering it_.

But he was, of course. He had drawn the Sword of Omens and was grinning at it, already calculating his winnings in his head.

"Wanna bet they've never seen a sword like this?" he asked the bemused merchant, and Felline put her face in her paws.

* * *

_**A/N: **Yup. "The Duelist and the Drifter" is one of my top faves of the series. Plenty of room to wedge in an OC - although she won't enhance the core story at all, the story itself will enhance conflict for her. Yay! Besides, I apparently love a bunny with dirty hair. LOL  
_

_Oh! This has nothing to do with anything at this particular moment in time, but I finally found the theme song for my fic. Nickelback's "Trying Not To Love You." I don't particularly like the song itself, but the lyrics are PERFECT. For later. From all kinds of angles. Heh._

_Reviewer Thanks! **Heart of the Demons **(Hee, I wish I had that kind of confidence! Still, it's a nice thing to hear. Thank you. *hugs*), **Darwin **(Haha, true! I don't even think it's as noble as that. He's nice to look at and that's about as far as she's gotten, although I do hope to make it a natural progression for her. Thank you), **Blacktiger93 **(Awesome, thank you! I'm a little nervous about the all day waiting that's coming up for them, but then, what other time could be so perfect to stick them alone together, right? At least, I hope . . . LOL. Confidence! I need more confidence! *snicker*), **Momochan77 **(Meanie Anne, picking on Kit - I always like to put one sick character in my stories. Goes along with the "Why is it always SUNNY in this story?!" problem that I have . . . sorry, just threw a random factoid at you. LOL. They have a lot to say to each other, and I'm hoping that it comes out right. Thanks for the luck, I'm gonna need it! *hug*), **Mooncloudpanther** (Something like that. Right now, I have to get them talking to each other properly. We'll have each of them heading in a different relationship direction for a while. At least that's the plan . . . thanks!), **Night Whisperer** (Thank you! I'm sorry I didn't get into them really . . . getting into it yet. Soon, though. Promise), **Seeds of Destruction** (Hee! I'm hoping to get things a bit more explosive than that. ;) Thank you!), **Naiko20** (LOL, adorable! Thank you!), and **KelseyAlicia** (Oooo - stunningly beautiful! You've just given me my most ego-boosting review ever. LOL. Thank you.)_

_Once again, Dear Readers, you have my most humble thanks. I could never finish this without you._

_Ever Yours,_

_Anne_


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